


Ghosts

by Frankieteardrop



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Antagonism, Direct Address, Established Relationship, Living vicariously through RZK, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-14 09:36:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4559667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frankieteardrop/pseuds/Frankieteardrop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot of turbulence throughout their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_”Wait… Hold on a second, stop! Stop!”_

There’s always an explosive argument to finish an evening, and it’s usually for no reason at all. Of course there’s alcohol and drugs involved, have you met us? We’re a bunch of delinquents who pretend we aren’t. What would an evening be without at least one of us trying to fist fight someone else? But then, we know we’ll be okay in the morning. Far too much cocaine makes anyone want to take on the world; makes you think you’re Billy Big-Bollocks and you’re untouchable. Well let me tell you, when it comes to him, no one is untouchable. 

_”Wait! Stop it! What’s gone on this time? Use your wor-! Stop! Till, Jesus fuck stop!”_

To be fair to him, he’s used all his words up so he’s got nothing left but actions. Isn’t it weird? A wordsmith running out of words? Sort of a cruel irony, right? I can’t help but laugh at it, but it’s a real thing, and it’s probably why I currently have a glass being thrown at me, shattering and embedding into my right shoulder where he threw a his drink at me. I didn’t feel that though, and it brushes out easy enough. No blood drawn, as Ollie tells me.

That’s the weird thing about drugs, which I’ve never really managed to get my head around; they really fuck up your senses. Cocaine makes everything seem superfast and aggressive; weed slows everything right down; Ketamine puts you down, but we don’t do that anymore since we nearly missed a show because we couldn’t get Paul awake (He did wake up by the way, but he spent a lot of the show dancing around rather than playing any songs.) Isn’t it strange how quickly arguments escalate, and how quickly they can die down, because they always does. I don’t even remember what we were talking about for him to throw his glass at me and start getting all shouty and aggressive. I don’t remember what I’d said to force him to become physical. But I just love watching him when he’s all het up with anger and aggression. He’s just… Well… He’s _magnificent_.

It has taken five men to hold him back from pummelling me into the floor. It has taken seven men to drag away. He is beautiful. All I can do is stand there and watch him, gormlessly staring at his form. He seems to actually grow, he gets bigger when he gets angry. I always imagined him like the hulk. I’ve always wanted to see him hulk out of a shirt or something, but these days we don’t really wear many shirts on stage. We’re very naked at this stage in our musical career. 

I can hear him swearing and I can see the men dragging him down to the floor, pinning him down. There’s a mix of glass and stones and dirt on the floor. I can hear it crunching against the tiles on the floor under his back. That’s going to hurt in the morning. But he’s still growing and he’s going red with anger. I wish I could take a photo to show him. He’d either be wholly impressed at himself in this moment or utterly mortified at his actions. This isn’t the worst it’s been though. I mean he’s actually hit me before and nearly knocked me out. He seemed okay after that though. But my face wasn’t.

But he loves a good argument. He loves a good fist fight. He’s such a masochist, and I love it. I guess I like being so antagonistic towards him because the more frustration he gathers before we make it back to the hotel, the better the sex will be once we get there, but I doubt there’d be any tonight. I’ve never really understood how he could be so submissive but so dominant at the same time. What I mean by that is that he can be so physical and forceful, but he’d never do anything without my instruction and I just love that. As I watch him being dragged off to the coach, I watch the sheer strength in him fighting against the pull of these seven men. Another joins to help, struggling to push him backwards, and in the end, I’m pretty certain they had to pick him up. You see, with Till it’s like a red mist that descends and he loses sight of all rational thought. It’s like that part of his brain shuts off and leaves him as this primal beast that requires blood for the wrongs that have been done to him. A true Saxon warrior. He could even be a Viking? No, he’s not blonde. I don’t really know but he’s just fucking sexy and that’s all there is to it. 

But when you watch him like this, or you see him on stage, you wouldn’t be aware that he’s actually cripplingly shy. People talk about Ollie being shy, but actually, Till is right up there too. He’s not very good at talking to people and he’s not very good with people he doesn’t know. He can just be so _awkward_. Seeing him try to punch me in the face isn’t going to give you that impression, and seeing how overtly sexual he can be on stage also doesn’t help. But the real Till, _the real Dietrich Lindemann_ , isn’t very good with human beings. I guess when he writes poems and stuff he has time to think about what he wants to say and put it into a way of full expression of self, but speaking? He’s a brilliant orator but he’s just _shy_!

I’m babbling about him now, aren’t I? You probably want to know more about us, right? You want to know about the band, our relationship and everything in between, right? Well tough, because I don’t want to bore you with those details. Ask Paul about them. He loves a good story.

I make my way back to the hotel, and I can feel the all-telling signs of a come-down sliding their way forward in my body, and everything starts to slow down. Have you ever had a really terrible come-down before? Have you ever experienced that crippling migraine and incessant vomiting that certain drugs give you? I need to get back soon to take more, just to stop the come-down from gracing me with its presence too early. We wouldn’t want to end the party just now, would we?

Schneider is already storming back down the hall to his own hotel room, and he’s shooting me daggers. He looks as though he took a little something from our beautiful singer.

“Just leave him alone, yeah? He’s blind with anger, just leave him be.”

I think I’ll take my chances. I can’t help but smirk.

As I enter the room, I look over the form that sits on the edge of the bed with his back to me. He’s got a smattering of slashes over his skin where he’s been tackled to the floor and broken glass and stones and all manner of things have broken through into his flesh and drawn blood. 

“You look a mess.”

He says nothing to me, but gets to his feet and storms past, slamming the bathroom door behind him. He really is a stroppy git, isn’t he?

“You can’t avoid me forever Dietrich,” He hates that name, but I love calling him that. “You’ve got to come out here sooner or later and we need to talk about what you did this evening, don’t we?”

I can hear his growling from inside the bathroom. He’s honestly like a caged animal. He’s lost a fair bit of weight since we started touring, through eating convenience foods sporadically and through sweating under stage lights night after night and also the cocaine is probably a big factor in it too. I’m getting lost in my own thoughts here. My point is that regardless of his not-so-dramatic weight loss over the past few months, he’s still as strong as an ox and that’s kind of terrifying. But he rarely exerts that physical dominance over me or any of the other boys. He’s usually just verbally abusive for a while and then he’ll stalk off and calm himself down alone somewhere and then he’ll come crawling back into my bed and apologise and blame it all on the coke.

Maybe it’s time for a detox.

“Till,” I knock on the door, sighing softly, “Come on out now please. Come and sit with me. I’ll pick that glass out of your back and patch you up, okay?” I offer. He might take it. I press my ear to the door. I can’t hear any snorting, or anything for that matter. What the hell is he doing in there?

The door swings open and he’s staring at me with very wide eyes and very wide pupils. 

“It’s too bright.”

“I know. Come on, lie on the bed and close your eyes. I’ll only keep the light that I need.”

He does as he’s told the first time for once and he crawls onto the bed, collapsing out flat on the mattress. I can’t help but sigh as I look over him. He really is beautiful, and I know he’s somewhat loving this pain, but at the same time I’m not sure if the adrenaline has worn off as well as the coke. I grab what I need from the first aid kit in the bathroom and crawl on top of him, sitting myself on his hips to pin him down a little. I can see already that there’s a fair amount of glass in his skin and it’s a bit gross but it all needs to come out. And while I’m not the best person for the job, I’m probably the only one who’s willing to be near him right now. So I set to work. 

I always feel close to him when I’m patching him up like this. I like to fix things; he’s definitely one that requires fixing. I run my hand gently over the skin to feel for any protruding spines of glass or shards of stone and gently pull them free from graze, settling them into a glass I pulled from the bathroom. After each piece, I wipe some antibacterial gel and then cover them with gauze. I can feel him flinch every time I touch him, and my mind thinks _”Good, you’ve made your bed now you can lie in it!”_ But then I feel vaguely guilty and remember that actually I probably caused the red mist to descend and it was my fault he was in this state in the first place. He’s usually very good at controlling himself and his anger but it’s been getting worse recently. 

It’s probably time for a detox.

I finish the last patch and press a soft kiss to the nape of his neck, gently nuzzling my hair into his sweat soaked hair, gently pressing my weight onto him as I wrap my arms around under him. 

“I love you, you know that right?”

He grunts in response, groaning softly. _“Get off me.”_

Well that’s not very nice, is it? I quickly sit up, keeping myself on top of him, pinning him down. “I said I love you.” I repeat, and he attempts to roll over from under me.

“Get. Off. Of. Me.”

“Till, what is going on? Is this still about earlier? Look, I’m sorry I said the thing, okay? I’m sorry.”

“Get off me.”

“Till…”

He doesn’t wait this time. He pushes me from him and sits up on the edge of the bed. I watch him, hunching over his knees and rubbing his eyes with fists. “Till. I said I was sorry, okay? I mean it.” He doesn’t speak. He gets to his feet and heads for the bathroom again, locking the door behind him. Well the jokes on him for being such a dick because the drugs are out here.

I hear the shower start to go and slap my forehead. He’s covered in gauze! He’s going to get it all wet! What the hell is he playing at? I storm forward, hammering on the door. “Till! Your dressings! They’ll get wet! Stop! We don’t have any more to cover them up!”

The door unlocks and swings open with such a force that I’m certain the hinges are sobbing.

_“Stop pretending to care about me Richard. Just fucking stop with all your fake love. I don’t want it anymore. Get away from me.”_

I just stare at him, and all those feelings of inadequacy I’m usually quite good at hiding come flooding into the forefront of my mind. “B-but I do care…” I stutter, “I d-don’t want you to wash off all that antibacterial stuff because the cuts will get infected… I… I don’t want you to get sick, Till…”

He says nothing, but there’s that growl again, and he slams the door shut in my face, catching my toes that had just stepped over the threshold into the bathroom. I deserved that. It was Karma, definitely Karma.

If Paul were here, he’d tell me that there’s no such thing as instantaneous karma, that karma is a belief system that carries into the next life your soul lives; if you’re a good little boy who loves his mother and never does any wrong, you’ll be rewarded as coming back as something quite good, like a human, but if you’re an evil little shit who humiliates others for their own personal pleasure and turns everything into a mess then you’ll come back as something really awful, like a beetle, or a bird that dies really easily, or something. Basically you won’t come back as anything good if you’re bad. And at this moment in time, I’m on the right track for coming back as a dung beetle. 

But I whole heartedly believe in instant karma. I totally believe that when you do or think horrible things, something bad happens to you. I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve had a bad thought about someone and then almost instantly hurt myself; the other day Paul was rabbiting on about something ridiculous like stealing designs for guitars from Metallica or something and I said something rather unsavoury about his lack of creativity and his design theft and I walked into a table. I swear to god it felt like I’d been shot; worst pain ever.

I’m getting off track.

The things that happened between Till and me, I never felt any karmic effects. I am fully aware that I am terrible to him. I am an awful partner to him, and I do love him, but I’m just terrible. I’ve never experienced anything like the table walking incidence (Other than having my toes shut in a door just now). Maybe karma is saving that all up? Maybe Lady Karma is saving up all my terrible deeds for my death? Maybe it’ll be slow and painful? And at the hands of Till Lindemann? I can imagine that. I can imagine the satisfaction he’d get from being the giver rather than the receiver. Nah, he loves it. He loves all that pain and humiliation and stuff. Who knows though, eh?

I’ve made my way back to the bed and sit patiently waiting for him, rubbing my toes (he really caught them hard) and I watch the door. I can hear him hissing under the water as it rushes over his back and I can imagine the colour of the water pooling in the bottom of the bath. That beautiful pink colour that diluted blood turns water. I just want to go on there and put my hands on him. He’s got such beautiful skin; it’s scarred and burned and bruised and I always just want to reach out and touch him. I always want to be close to him. And the sheer heat that pours out of him. We could be based in the arctic and he’d be pumping out pure heat. He’s just so beautiful. But my nature is that I have the Midas Touch; I turn everything to shit. And eventually, this relationship will go to shit. For now, I’ll try to salvage what I can. But he’ll come to a point where he learns to hate me. And that’s fine, I’m used to that now.

He leaves the bathroom, and he’s standing in front of me in nothing but a towel; tall, toned and dripping wet. He’s like a cold glass of something sweet on a summer’s afternoon and I could lap him all up. He says nothing to me and moves to get into his pants, dropping his towel.

“Till, will you talk to me?”

There’s just silence. 

“Till, I said I was sorry.”

There’s nothing. He gets into bed, pulls the blankets up over himself and shuts off his light, back turned to me. 

“Till, please.”

I slowly lie myself down. I have to be super careful now. He might snap on me once again. I lie on my back behind him, looking up at the ceiling. 

“You know what it is, Richard? You know what drives me fucking crazy? It’s that arrogance that you have!” Till sits up in bed and stares at me. “Your fucking arrogance that you think you can act the way you do and then get away with it? Treat me like a fucking fool?” he hisses, staring down at me. 

I sit myself up so I’m at least on a level with him. 

“Till, I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“That’s exactly it! Richard, nothing is your fault! You don’t know anything about anything! You can do no wrong.” He says, and I watch him slowly get to his feet. He’s getting tired now. The come-down is taking effect and he’s getting achy. The pain in his skin is taking over and his knee is starting to hurt. But he’s growing restless.

“Till…” I start, but actually he’s right and I don’t really have any words to say to him. 

“Just don’t, Richard. I’m not interested.” He says, getting back into bed and curls up in his sheets. 

We lie in silence for a while, and I know he’s not asleep because his breathing is still too harsh. He’s too pissed off to sleep. 

“I do love you, Till.” I say, turning onto my side to face him. I press a kiss to the skin on his shoulder that isn’t all cut up. “I really do… Your cuts are weeping, by the way. Let me go and get something to cover them…”

“Just shut the fuck up Richard.” Till sighs, turning over onto his back. “The bed will soak it up, fuck it.”

I look over him, slowly leaning in to press a gentle kiss to his shoulder, “I love you Till.”

“I know.”

::::::::

I watch him sleeping now. The come-down finally knocked him out. But he’s trapped in a nightmare and he’s not getting out of it anytime soon. I don’t know what he’s dreaming of, but I know I can just hold him tightly and make sure there’s someone there to hold him when he needs it. That person will always be me.

He has this sort of guttural moan that leaks from his mouth. It’s an incredibly sexual sound that spills from the back of the throat, almost like a low howl. I wrap my arms tightly around his middle, pulling him close to me. He’s moaning every so often, and I press my face into the crook of his neck. I just want to be close to him. I’m being selfish, obviously, because I want to keep him entirely for myself. I don’t want to share him; he’s mine. But that devilish mix of low self-esteem and too many drugs causes the worst nightmares in him. He’s got it bad. And I really hate to see my beautiful lover’s face marred with fear. He’s got a cold sweat and I can feel the mix of that and the blood leaking from his back soaking my chest. I’m like stuck to him at the moment. It’s created like a sucker between us and I don’t want to move because I’m pretty certain I’m stopping him from bleeding to death.

“I love you,” I whisper against his ear, pulling him tighter to me, wrap the blanket tighter around us. I rest my head against his shoulder and hold him. “It’s okay…”

He’s calming a little, but I know this is just the calm before the storm. Things will get a lot worse before it gets better. I could wake him, but I don’t want to. I want to keep him here in this sleep full state and allow him the comfort that it was only a dream a little longer. I hope that offers him some kind of solace, knowing that what he’s suffering is only a dream.

“It’s only a dream…”

I don’t understand why his self-esteem is so low. When I look at him, he’s got this magnetism that draws anyone and everyone in around him. His gravitas pulls people in and they’re entirely captivated by him. He’s got this intelligence in his head that I’m wholly envious of. I’m by no means an idiot, but he’s just on this whole different level. He’s got this way with words that is so beautiful, and I’ve yet to encounter another living being who can manipulate words the way he does and have it work in several different languages at once. But there’s more than that. He’s just beautiful. He’s got, in my opinion, the most handsome face. Those eyes are so beautiful, glassy-green that’re deeper than oceans. Those lips. His hands; oh my god his hands. I love them. I’d like them to be on me all the time. I think he’s beautiful. I love this man, I really do.

He moans again and struggles against my arms, and I slowly pull him tighter to me. 

“If they want you, they’re gonna have to fight me first!” I whisper, pressing a soft kiss behind his ear.

He’s writhing restlessly. It’s time to wake him. He’ll start getting violent and these will turn into Night Terrors soon.

I sit up and shake him gently, “Till, wake up. It’s just a dream. Come on, wake up.” He’s groaning and it’s growing louder. I shake him a little harder. “Till, wake up.” I lean down, pressing a kiss to his forehead, “Wake up…”

He stares up at me with wild-eyed terror. He takes a moment to gather himself, realising his surroundings and let out a very shaky breath. 

“Are you okay?” I ask him, gently running my fingers through his hair. He nods, and turns in my arms. He presses his face into my chest and I can feel the grazes on his back drying up. “Those are going to be sore tomorrow…” I say to him, kissing the top of his head. “We’ll get some things to make these better.”

And he’s out again. I can feel his breathing slowing and he’s asleep. He’s got this weird ability when he falls asleep. Most people drift off slowly, but with Till, it’s like someone just switches a light off and he’s out. It’s incredible. 

The way he’s lying has made my arm go to sleep, but I don’t want to move. I don’t want to wake him. It’s so rare these days that he actually sleeps. He mostly lies awake in bed behind me, awake, or sat at a desk writing because it’s common knowledge that the early hours are the most productive of them all. He makes me sad that he can’t just stop. 

His noises have stopped now, and he’s purring lightly against my chest as he sleeps. I don’t really understand why he’s still with me really. I’m sure I’ve spoken about this before but I’m really horrible to him a lot. But actually I love him a lot. I don’t want him to leave me though. Maybe I should start being nice to him? Or at least nicer. He wraps his arms around me and I can feel his bloodied hands touching me. He pulls me tighter to him, pressing his face further into my chest and I just want him to stay in this nice, calm state forever. He looks so innocent and calm and beautiful when he’s asleep. There’s no stress or fear marring his face now, and he’s calmed. That nightmare has left him and he’s in a light sleep. But it never lasts very long.

He groans and he’s awake, and he’s looking up at me. 

“You’re thinking too loud, Risch.” He growls, moving himself to sit up. “You breathe too loud when you think.” 

“Sorry…” 

“What time is it?” he asks no one in particular, “Five am. Why didn’t you wake me?” 

“What for? We’re not travelling for another few hours and you needed to sleep…” He grunts at me and gets up, and I can see the brownish, dark red blood sliding down his skin, and the dried blood crusting onto the sheets. “We need to get someone to look at your skin…” I say softly, sitting up. I get up, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “Stay where you are, I’ll go get the antibac and clean you up…” I say softly, kissing his neck softly. 

“I think there’s a bit of glass still in me.”

“Okay. I’ll get that…”

“Richard…?” 

“Yeah?”

“I love you too.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the night before.

“You’re thinking too loud, Risch. You breathe too loud when you think.” 

“Sorry…” He mumbles, and I can feel him shifting on the bed to move closer to me.

“What time is it? Five am. Why didn’t you wake me?” 

“What for? We’re not travelling for another few hours and you needed to sleep…” He’s not been to sleep. He’s just been awake this whole time. I can tell because he’s far too chipper for this hour. “We need to get someone to look at your skin…” he tells me as he sits up, kissing my shoulder. “Stay where you are, I’ll go get the antibac and clean you up…” kissing my neck in that oh-so delicate way he’s practiced. 

“I think there’s a bit of glass still in me.”

“Okay. I’ll get that…” and I can see him hunting for the tweezers

“Richard…?” 

“Yeah?”

“I love you too.” He smiles at me, and I flick the lights on and settle back onto the bed on my front. “Near the bottom of my left shoulder blade. There’s something digging around in there.”

He crawls on top of me once more and he sets to work. I know he gets some kind of sick satisfaction from rooting around inside gashes like this, causing more unnecessary pain to someone. He’s always been a bit of a sadist. He’s at it for a good ten minutes before it produces any results and then he pours that hell-created antibacterial stuff into it. 

“Jesus Christ Risch! What’re you trying to do?!”

“There’s pus, Till. Pus means infection… You’ve opened up one of those blisters from before. Stop being such a little bitch.”

I take a deep breath. Now is not the time for fighting. 

“It’s being really stubborn. I can’t get it out with the tweezers…” He tells me, and I can feel him running a finger over the sensitive skin. “I’m going to have to go in…” He says in a dark voice, and I know what he means. I feel him dig his finger into the cut, feeling around with the tip of his pinky trying to find the piece of glass. I try to keep my breathing level because he could open it up more if I move. I can hear him gagging, and I pray to whatever deity will listen that he doesn’t vomit onto me. “Aha! Got it!” he declares triumphantly, choking back a gag as he flicks the small piece of glass into the bin next to the bed. 

“There’s more gauze in my case. I brought extra the other day in Denmark.” I tell him, slowly moving to sit up as he gets off of me. He fetches it and a large pair of scissors, and I can hear him cutting it up as he sits behind me. “Do you have any of that cream we picked up in London? You know, that Germaline stuff?” I ask, “You know the really stinging stuff?”

“No. We used the last of that on Flake when you dropped him onto that bit of metal on the stage and he cut himself…”

I curse internally, growling softly, and I feel him press a soft kiss to the back of my neck. “It’ll be okay.” He tells me, “We’ll just get the medics to keep an eye on them, yeah?” and I can feel him smiling against my skin. It’s a weird one, our relationship. But I don’t think I could really do without him. I know that I need him because he’s the only one who’s brave enough to be this close to me, poking around inside my skin with a pair of tweezers. It’s like that fable, the mouse and the lion. Others were scared to help the lion by getting him out of the trap, but then the mouse has no problem helping him. I realise that the mouse helped the lion because the lion didn’t eat the mouse earlier in the story but then I haven’t eaten Richard alive yet, have I? So maybe that’s why he’s sitting here patching me up.

“There.” He says softly, and I catch sight of him marvelling his handiwork in the mirror, and I can’t help but smile. I turn around and press a soft kiss to his lips.

“Thank you.”

He kisses me properly then. “Shall we just stay in bed a little longer?” he asks me, and I know what he’s suggesting behind that question. He never asks outright. He always masks it behind something innocent. I nod and lie back with him, lips locking with his. He does this thing when he’s kissing, and it drives me crazy in the best kind of way. His kisses start light, feather-light, and they gradually get harder, deeper, and he does this thing where he nibbles on your lower lip, but not hard enough for there to be any pain but it makes the skin on your lips all sensitive. And then he puts his fingers into your hair, and he does have the most incredible fingers. They’re so dexterous and nimble, probably from years of guitar playing. But they don’t feel as calloused as they should do. Richard’s hands are soft and warm and pliable. 

But he likes me on top of him. He enjoys the weight of another person bearing down on his chest. So I roll us over so he lies under me, and his hands are still on me. His hands never leave me, no matter what. And as I sit up to prepare him, he’s still running those fingers over me; touching my knees, my thighs, and the lower part of my stomach; he never stops touching me. And that continuous contact makes my skin tingle all over. I have yet to meet another person who has mastered how to make my body feel the way he does. 

And that face. Albert Camus once said _”Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time”_ and I whole heartedly agree. Richard is one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever encountered, and his beauty drives me insane. He has perfect skin, unmarred by scars or spots, and the structure of his face has been perfectly engineered to be so angelic. To me, he is the physical embodiment of pure beauty. You’d never believe he had the devil in his with the face of an angel. He’s a wicked boy, everyone knows that. But if you’d never met him before you’d assume he was, well, nice. And in this position spread out before me, eager and waiting, I know that he’s got me under some kind of spell, and I’m doing exactly what he wants me to do to him, not what I’d like to do to him. He’s got me wrapped around his little finger and eating out of the palm of his hand. And as I sink my fingers into him, he has this sudden little gasp, like he wasn’t aware it was coming. His mouth hangs open and he’s making desperate attempts for air as arousal coils around his insides and drains all the blood from him, pooling it right around his hips. I have to claim that mouth. I want it on me at all times. He’s such a beautiful sight when he’s like this. 

And god he feels so good to be inside of. It’s one of his more redeeming qualities. But there he goes, digging his fingers into places he knows will hurt. He’s gripping at the skin on my shoulders, tips of his fingers are digging into the cuts there, pushing hard onto them as we move, Making me move faster, harder against him. He’s a moaning mess under me and I take hold of his wrists to pin them above his head. As much as I love his hands on me, he needs to stop that. 

I hold both his wrists under one hands, moving my other to wrap eager fingers around him. I know he hates this. He hates not being in control of this. He hates not being able to use his hands and it makes him wriggle under me. I can’t help but smile at him, all desperate to come and reaching new peaks of aggression to take control. 

“Till… L-let go of my hands.”

“No.” I tell him, squeezing him a little tighter, feeling the first twitches of his orgasm coming to the surface. And I watch him as he topples over the edge. I wish I could think of some beautiful metaphor for how beautiful he looks, but there are no words to describe him. The noises that come from him, low and animalistic, erupting in his chest and catching in his throat. And then I let go of his hands, thrusting a few more times before he takes me with him. I bury my face against the crook of his neck, holding him close to me, pressing our bodies together. He wraps his legs around my hips and pulls me closer, pulling me deeper into him despite both of us having reached out end. And when that post-orgasm haze starts to lift, I don’t want to speak. I don’t want to ruin this moment with words. They’ll just seem meaningless. But I know he will. He has to say something.

“I hate it when you won’t let me touch you…” He growls against the top of my ear, biting at it gently. I slowly roll over onto my back next to him and stare at the ceiling. I don’t understand why he can’t just enjoy the silence for a while. He has to fill every second with sound. He’s actually worse than Paul sometimes. I suppose because Richard is ubiquitous in my life where as Paul isn’t.

“I know you do.” I tell him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder before getting up to get dressed. “We might as well go downstairs and get some breakfast. We’re travelling in a couple of hours…”

“No. No Till come back… Don’t leave yet.” He begs me. “Come back to bed please… Just cuddle me for like ten minutes and then you can do what you like…”

I sigh and look back at him. “For god sake, fine.” I crawl back into bed and wrap my arms around him. He buries his head against my chest and stays there. 

“I love you…” He mumbles against my chest, his hands running slowly, carefully over the gauze he’d stuck to my back earlier. He holds me a little tighter and sighs contentedly. 

“Yeah, I know. I love you too…”

::::::::::::::::

At least when he’s asleep I can think.

I hate coach journeys with a passion. I always get that sickness feeling in the pit of my stomach that is specific to coach journeys. And I’m also trapped into the window seat because he’s not just asleep. He’s _really _asleep; mouth-open-drool-everywhere asleep. I mean he’s really out of it. If he weren’t such a diva I might consider doing something to him, like drawing on his face or something. I know he’d not wake up. I’ve definitely done worse to him while he’s been asleep than drawing on his face.__

__He’s just fascinating. How does someone go to sleep like that? He’s literally drooling on my arm. He’s not the most graceful sleeper, I’ll give him that. But he needs this. To be fair to him he’s been awake for four days straight with all the drugs he’s shoved in himself. I’m glad that he’s asleep. He looks like he’d be nice if I didn’t know him._ _

__I slip my arm around him and kiss the top of his head, letting him slip into a more comfortable position against my chest. He curls up, wrapping his arm across my lap, groaning softly as he drifted back into that deep, deep sleep. I do love him really._ _

__He used to come and visit me at the farm every weekend and pester the shit out of me in the early days, before he left for the west. He just used to turn up, and it got to the point where I didn’t even bother locking the door on a Friday night because I knew he’d come strolling through the door at five past ten demanding food and smokes. And then he’d spend the weekend sleeping in my bed, and annoying me, begging me to get into bed with him. He wasn’t the most conscious person I’d ever met, and he has gotten better. He’s just not very good at being nice about asking for things._ _

__I just watch him for a while, now able to do some writing because he’s sleeping in a better position now. He must be dreaming of something nice. He’s got a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, making him look so angelic. He really is something else. He’s blessed with good dreams, and is temporarily lost in a place where he can do no wrong and cannot be hurt by anyone or anything. I envy that. My brain seems hell bent on driving me crazy with nightmares and lucid dreams._ _

__Maybe it’s time for a detox._ _

__But he’s the weirdest person that I know of. I just don’t understand him at all. He’s this complete diva dick who makes all these demands and pisses everyone off constantly, like when he starts and argument and then walks away while others are continuing said argument that he started. But then he is also really cutely passionate about all these weird little things, like yoga. Who the hell likes yoga? Richard does, that’s who. And what’s worse is he’s roped Schneider into it with him. It’s so weird. But he gets very passionate about these things for a while, like he discovered this band the other day and he’s not stopped talking about them and it’s incredibly cute, which isn’t a word I use very often, especially when in regards to Richard._ _

__As he wakes, he sits bolt upright, eyes still closed and he groans as he stretches. “Where are we?” he asks, settling back against the chair, his eyes opening finally. “Did we reach Poland yet?” he looks over at me, wide eyed, sleep still clinging to his brain._ _

__“No, not yet. We’re quite close to the border though.” I tell him, and he settles back against my shoulder, eyes still open._ _

__“What have you been writing?” He asks, looking over at the open notebook in my lap._ _

__“Nothing, really. You’ve been asleep on my arm so I’ve not been able to do a lot…”_ _

__“Oh, sorry…” He says softly, looking up at me. “Can we go for dinner tonight? Just you and me?”_ _

__“Well I guess so?” I look down at him. “There’s no show tonight, so…”_ _

__“And then we can just go home and lie down? Back to the hotel, I mean, and lie down?”_ _

__“If that’s what you want…” I tell him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. It’s all catching up with him. You can see it in his eyes. They’re dark and glazed over. As my mother used to say, _the lights are on but nobody’s home._ He’s exhausted. If we even make it to dinner tonight I’ll be amazed._ _

__He looked up and narrowed his eyes at me. “What were you dreaming about last night?”_ _

__I sighed and rested my head back against the seat, moving to wrap my arm around him. “I don’t remember…” I lie._ _

__“You do remember. You always remember Till. Tell me! We might be able to sort it out?”_ _

__I sigh softly again, resting my cheek against the top of his head. “Well… We were at the farm in Schwerin, and it was just you and I at the house, Nele was off somewhere with her mother or something? I don’t really know, but she wasn’t there. But anyway, I got up and carried on with whatever normal routine you get into when you’re at home and showered and stuff, and made some breakfast. And I’m sure you were there, but I didn’t see you. But I could hear you.” I tell him, looking down. He’s staring up at me with those wide blue eyes. At least he’s still awake. “Anyway, I go for a swim in the lake and I get this overwhelming feeling that something isn’t right. There’s something terribly wrong with what’s happening in this dream but I can’t quite work it out. So I get out of the lake and make my way back to the house, and on my walk I start to notice little things that aren’t right. It’s the farm house in Schwerin but it’s not the house. I know it is but it doesn’t _look_ like the farmhouse, does that make sense?” I ask him, and he nods. “Well, I walk into the house and the kitchen is completely wrong, and then I start to see little patches of blood, and little areas of mess that look like they were caused by fighting…” I swallow hard, “But the house is completely silent save for you calling me from upstairs.” I stop, “I… Anyway, after searching, I can’t find you but I just keep finding more and more blood all over the house… I half expected it to be like that scene in The Shining, but it wasn’t. And then I found this room at the back of the house that I’d never seen before, because while it’s my house it’s not my house… And I can hear your voice inside, and it was telling me that everything would be okay, and that if they wanted me they’d have to fight you first… And then when I finally opened the door into the darkness, I woke up.” I tell him, shifting in my seat. Thinking back, it was more unsettling than frightening._ _

__“I was telling you those things because you were moaning in your sleep…” He says softly. “I didn’t know what was making you all panicky so I was telling you everything would be okay and that I was there for you…”_ _

__“So I literally can’t even get peace from you in my dreams, no?” I laugh, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. “Hey, look… We’re at the border!”_ _

__He looks over my chest to the window and his face seems to brighten up as we cross over into Poland. “You know my mum brought us here one a holiday once when I was really little.” He smiles at the memory. “I don’t remember a lot of it because I was really small but I just remember loving every minute of it.” He looks up at me. “Isn’t that strange?” He sits up a moment, straightening himself out. “At least we’re close. I need a proper bed to sleep in.” He sighs, taking my arm, wrapping it around himself. He sighed softly and his expression changed back to how it had been before; blank and devoid of all emotion. He rests there, silent, and curls a little closer to me. He’s essentially like a big child when he’s on a come-down like this. Plenty of hugs and sleep and he’ll be almost human again this evening._ _

__“You should sleep more, Liebling…” I tell him, pressing a kiss into his hair. It’s all soft and freshly washed against my face, which is rare these days because we rarely get time to do more than the essentials with all the travelling. But being up early this morning meant we had time to do what we needed to. He grumbles something about me needing more sleep than him before he closes his eyes, and I can feel him slowly drifting off to sleep in my arms once more. All the lines of worry and anxiety smoothed from his face, and he looked younger now, more innocent. There wasn’t a twitch, nor spasm, no movement save for the gentle rhythm of his breathing, each intake of air sinking him lower into the depths of his oblivion. He was totally at peace._ _

__I go back to looking out the window, digging into my bag as far as I can to take my book out. Maybe I can do some reading while he’s asleep._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really struggled with writing from the perspective of Till. I wanted him to be more poetic in the language he used than Richard is but I couldn't do it to the standard I wanted so I'm probably going to stick to writing as Richard from now on. Till is far too deep for me to delve in there and imagine I can get into that mind. I can't. It's a fortress.
> 
> I also did a bit of an E.L James and reused dialogue from the last chapter. Sorry about it. At least I’m not writing Fifty Shades...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it's time for a detox.

I watch him, hunched over the table, snorting fat lines of cocaine, curtesy of the venue, through a rolled up bank note. He continues taking a deep, deep breath to stop the powder from spilling and then wipes his nose on the back of his hand. I watch him, with his eyes closed for a moment as he settles back on his haunches and waits a moment, before opening his eyes again and looking around. 

“Good?” I ask him, and he nods, slowly picking himself up. “Do you promise not to punch me tonight just before your comedown?” I frown up at him.

“You know I can’t promise that because you’re probably going to be the antagonist…”

He’s not wrong.

“Okay, well just in case you hulk out, remember that I love you…” I tell him, and he kisses me deeply before turning to finish getting ready for the show. He’s a mess of off-white bandages, leather and dried blood and I love it. I finish putting on whatever makeup I need to and move to the table where all the drugs we could put our dirty little hands on wait for us to ingest them in one way or another. There’s even that top grade heroin there, but I’d stay away from that shit. It’s far too addictive for us to even think about. 

We’re all aware of the side effects these drugs can have, and we know what they could do to us with prolonged use, but at this point in time I’ve drunk a few too many beers and need something to counteract the effects of alcohol and pick me straight back up again, and cocaine is the fast way of doing that. I replicate Till’s movements, crouching down to take in one of the lines that sit on the table. I stare at them a moment, swallowing hard. I think about what it’s done to us, more specifically myself and Till, and how much damage it’s done to us physically. I look up and I can see the gauze on his back, and I roll my eyes as I hear him instruct Paul to rip it all off. What a waste of time.

I look back at the white lines on the table. Is it really worth it? Should I really be doing this? I can hear Paul telling me to hurry up and shake the thoughts from my head, snorting the large white lines as quickly as I can. The hit is almost instant, and as I open my eyes, everything seems so much brighter, so much louder and faster. But it’s not as intense as before. The effects don’t feel as heavy as they have in the past. I get to my feet and make my way to the waiting area. I’m ready for the show now.

:::::::

I kept my eyes on him throughout the show and he didn’t seem right. There was something terribly off with his movements, He was stepping a little too hard, a little too staggered and I’d never seen him like this before. I guess I’d never spent an inordinate amount of time watching his stage performances, apart from the odd glance, but tonight I couldn’t take my eyes from him. I couldn’t focus on the crowd like I normally did. I couldn’t stop looking at him. A frown pulled at my brows as he disappeared during song changes, and when he returned it was obvious he’d been out back doing another line or two. I felt the first sparks of fear lighting in my belly. He was doing too much again, and too quickly. It was making me nervous, because I knew what he was like. I understood his psychological response to too much cocaine and it was beginning to worry me.

As we came off to wait for our encore I could see him pacing around like a caged animal. He was so hyped up that even from this distance I could see his pupils. They were fully dilated and that’s when real worry began to set in. How the hell was I supposed to approach him to get him home in one piece? He was one step away from fighting the world and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. What if he picked a fight with the wrong person and they handed his arse to him? What if he turned on me and handed my arse to me? I decided to stay out of his way until we were back in the hotel. It was the safest bet at the moment. 

We played out encore and we went off to the smallest after party you’d ever encounter. He’d disappeared quickly from the stage and I hadn’t seen where he’d gone but I spotted him at the back of the room, tapping his foot on the ground all too fast and drumming his fingers on his knee. His eyes are darting around the room, examining everyone who walks past him and he has a little frown etched on his face from concentrating too hard. I walk towards him, plastering a smile to my face to try and keep things light. I don’t want him to get aggressive tonight. I don’t have the energy, nor inclination, to deal with him. 

“Till, I’m going to head back to the hotel. I’m pretty beat. Do you want to come too?” I ask him, and he looks up at me, that frown doesn’t budge.

“No, I’m okay. I’m just going to stay here for a little bit longer.” He says all too quickly. He’s taken too much. 

“Okay.” I tell him, leaning down to kiss his temple. “I’ll see you in bed. Don’t be too long…” I smile down at him, “I love you.” I tell him.

“I’ll be as late as I want.” He tells me, and then I see him catch himself.

“Okay.” I say, “Whatever you want.” I turn to walk away from him. I know this is either going one of two ways; he’ll pull me back for an argument, or he’ll leave me alone until later. It’s weird the way a brain het up on coke makes decisions. I feel a hand grip my wrist and all the muscles in my belly tense up. I turn back and look at him, and he’s staring straight into my eyes, like he’s looking directly into my soul. “A-are you okay?”

“I’m going to come with you.” He says, his hand sliding down into mine. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m coming with you.” He tells me and then takes the lead, walking out in front of me to the street to be taken back to the hotel.

He’s very still and very silent on the journey back, and he’s still silent as we make our way up to our room. He’s silent as we enter and the only noise to break it is the door softly closing behind me. 

“Till, are you okay?” I ask, moving towards him. I place my hand on his shoulder and his skin is on fire. Like he’s normally really hot anyway, but this is beyond that. “Jesus, Till… You’re burning up…”

“I’m fine.” He tells me and moves to sit on the bed. 

“No… Till your skin is really hot.” I tell him, moving to the minibar to grab a bottle of cold water. “Drink this please?” I offer it to him, and he stares up at me, the frown settling in again. 

“I said I’m fine.” 

“Yes, I know, but can you drink this please?” I ask him, sitting down next to him. I can see blood seeping through his shirt on his shoulder and I start to worry a little more. “Till, can I call a medic please? I’m really worried about the grazes on your back?” I ask him calmly.

“Richard, are you trying to tell me you know my body better than I do?” he got to his feet and moved to the window, turning to look at me. The look in his eyes made my stomach drop and my blood run cold. He’d definitely had too much. His face was devoid of all expression. His pupils were so dilated that his eyes took on the look of a shark; cold and emotionless, giving nothing away.

“No, not at all Till… B-but those grazes have opened up again and they’re bleeding onto his shirt. Let me get the medic to take a look at them… I think they’re getting inf-“ he delivered a swift smack to my right cheek. I raised my hand to my face and felt the heat radiating from the skin there, the sting pulsing through my face.

“I said I was fine, Richard. You think you know best all the time but you don’t.” He growled, “You don’t know anything, Richard. You can’t tell me anything.” And he paces the room, and I know worse is yet to come. I slowly get to my feet and turn towards the door. I just need to get away from him, only for half an hour or so until the effects of the drugs wear off. I reach for the handle and I feel a hand on my shoulder, “Where are you going?” he asks, his voice eerily calm.

“I need to go and grab something from my room quickly…” I tell him, feeling fear rising in me. I’d experienced beatings from him before, and I’d always given as good as I’d got, but I didn’t have the energy to fight him this time. I needed to get out.

“You don’t need anything, Richard. You’re a terrible liar, you know that?” I started to panic then, turning to look back at him. “What? Do I scare you Richard? Am I really that terrifying?” He asks, moving closer to me, trapping me between himself and the door. “What do you think I’m going to do to you? Beat you? Is that it?” He growls. “Come on Risch, you know me better than that…” His voice seems soft against my ear, and he’s pressed right up against me, his hands are running over my sides, gripping my hips, pulling me closer. I nod, swallowing hard, staring out of the window over his shoulder, trying to keep a level head. How can I get out of this? He’s pressing feather-light kisses against my throat, nipping ever so gently with his teeth, and it’s making me melt. The pooling sensation of arousal in my lower abdomen paired with utter fear is dizzying, and fight-or-flight needs to kick in soon, because I’m stuck like a deer in headlights. I can feel him pressing into my hip, and the weight of him bearing down on me as he touches me. But this is always just the calm before the storm. He won’t be this gentle once we get started. He begins kissing lower, running his tongue over my collar bone, kissing over my chest. I can feel the heat rising in my body and I watch him drop to his knees in front of me. I watch him unzip my jeans and shudder at the feel of his mouth on me. “Oh fuck… Till…” I groaned, sinking my fingers into his hair. God, the feel of his mouth on me. Jesus Christ it felt good. “Jesus…” I moan softly, and he growls against me, and I hiss, feeling his teeth grazing me. I look down and he’s staring up at me. “I l-left… I left the stuff in my bag in my room…” I tell him, which is the true. All our lube and condoms are sitting in the bottom of my bag, so I’m not lying. And even at his cruellest he’d not attempt to do anything dry; he’s not a monster.

He takes a step back and looks at me, then presses a rough kiss to my lips. “Don’t be too long, please…” He asks, running his hands over me. My body responds to his touches so easily and it’s actually worrying how he manages to be this person and still makes me want to fuck him. I don’t understand my body right now. But I have never left a room so quickly in my whole life, almost sprinting down the hall to my room, crashing straight into Paul as I do. I hadn’t even seen him.

“Jesus, Risch, I know I’m short but come on ma-… Woah, are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost…” Paul says, a frown near knitting his brows together.

“Y-yeah fine. I just need to get something from my room…” I repeat, turning to walk away, frantically trying to get my key card into the little slot on the door, and failing miserably. My hands were shaking too much to even consider getting it into the impossibly narrow gap to let me into safety. I felt a warm hand grip mine, and a hand on my shoulder and looked up, seeing Paul next to me. 

“What’s going on?” He asked, searching my face for answers. 

“N-nothing, Paul honestly, I’m just on a bad come-down, that’s all. I drank too much before doing any drugs and it’s made me all jittery…” I lie, unable to look at him for any length of time. I was too busy looking over his shoulder for Till, hoping he wasn’t watching. He’d definitely read into something that wasn’t there. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Right. You know you’re a terrible liar, right?” he tells me, shaking his head. “Just be safe.” He pushes my door open and he stands back, watching me. I know he’s aware of what Till can be like. Till has tried to fight him once or twice before, and it’d taken all of us to stop it from happening. “I’m just down the hall if you need me.” He says, “Just say the word, okay? We’re all here.” I nod sheepishly, uttering a quick thanks before heading into my room. They’d not be able to hold back Hurricane Lindemann if he decided to go.

I lock the door behind me and almost collapse onto the bed, fear finally taking over. I’ve dealt with him before, and I don’t understand why he still instils so much fear in me when he’s like this. I know in my mind I can calm him. I’ve done it before, but it’s the way he is. He’s so aggressive, but he’s surpassed outward aggression and he levels off into this glacial calm that is ice cold and terrifying. And he’s just so strong. There’s no matching his strength. I’ve seen him pick up Flake, who admittedly doesn’t weigh a great deal, but he lifts him with no effort at all. He still has that strength he built from his youth as a swimmer and he’s so controlled in his anger and aggression that it’s just terrifying. But I have to go back there. I need to wait long enough for the effects to start wearing off and for the exhaustion to start hitting him, and then it’s safe. He won’t have the energy to do any damage to anyone.

I hunt through my bag, finding the things I’d used as an excuse and shoved them into my pocket, replacing my butt on the bed and waited. I needed to calm myself first before anything, and as I catch sight of myself in the mirror, I can see the large, red hand print on my right cheek. 

_Oh fuck…_ I sigh to myself, hand touching the skin gently. Paul had seen that. It was so obvious in the darkened room that under the bright fluorescent lights of the hall, Paul would have most definitely been able to see it. I know they’re no stranger to the bruises that Till and I have given each other in the past, so I hope he just brushes it off or something. I can’t handle a barrage of questions about it right now, or ever.

I get to my feet and look around, swallowing hard as I pat my pockets down, feeling everything I needed there. I gathered all my courage and made my way out, heading back down the hall to Till. I hoped he’d already collapsed with exhaustion by the time I got there, but I can’t always be lucky. I just wonder sometimes; is this the real Till Lindemann, or is the calm and sweet sober Till the real one? He exudes this quiet aggression on stage, but he can be so sweet when it’s just the six of us, just the two of us. I don’t know what to believe anymore. 

I notice he’s left the door open for me to return, and I slowly push it open, seeing no light bar the blue glow of the television aimed towards the bed. I frown as I close the door behind me, feeling that fear returning. I can’t see him, so I don’t know where he is. I don’t feel my usual confident self at the moment. I’ve lost all the effects of the cocaine, so all that false confidence it fills me with is gone. 

“Till?” I call, looking around. He’s not in the bed, but then I see the light from under the bathroom door. 

“Till?” I call through, knocking lightly. 

“R-richard… Go and get a medic…” He stutters, and I push the door open to take a look at him. I was never going to be prepared for the sight in front of me, but he’s a mess on the floor. He’s pale and he’s struggling to breathe, and there’s a lot of blood on the bath where he’s leaning back on it.

“Oh Jesus, Till... Fucking hell.” I drop to my knees in front of him, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Jesus, you’re burning up!” I frown, looking over him, “I-I’ll be back. I’ll g-get someone. Oh my god!” I scramble to my feet and in the sheer panic of what’s happening, I knock on every door, searching for our medic. Paul appears with Ollie and they stop me, Paul taking my hand and leading me back to Till, with Ollie searching for the medic in a far less frantic fashion.

Paul is the first in the room and is looking over the singer, pressing a hand to his forehead, shaking his head. “He just did too much coke tonight…” Paul tells us both, pressing a hand to the other’s chest. “Your heart is going too fast, Till…” he sighs, “Seriously, at what point was your brain so fucked up that it stopped counting how much coke you did?” He asks, getting to his feet, “Richard, help me get him in the shower. We need to cool him down.” He tells me, and the two of us struggle to hoist our singer into the stream of cold water that’s beating down in the bath. We wait for the medics to arrive with Ollie, and Paul looks at me, frowning as he takes me hands.

“It’s time for a detox.” He tells me. “All of us.” He shakes his head, “Were you panicking earlier because he was in this state?” Paul asks me, and then shakes his head, “No, he wasn’t like this when you left, was he?” He sighs softly, his eyes travelling down to the bottle of lube poking out of my pocket. 

“H-he scared me a little, that’s all…”

“And the hand print on your face?” Paul was too calm for this discussion and it was making me feel queasy. 

There was a knock at the door that broke the tension of our discussion and Ollie walked in with the medic, and Paul pulled me into the bedroom, sitting me down on the bed. “You both need a detox. I’ve watched it, and he’s particularly bad, but you both need to stop for a while…” He says calmly. “You both need to fix this.”

We wait in silence and listen to the medic talking to Till, asking him questions, checking him over.

“At least he’s calm and coherent…” Ollie tells us as he walks out of the bathroom. “He’s not trying to fight anyone, thank God.”

“He asked me to find the medics. He’s definitely not right. He never asks for medical assistance.”

There was a call for help from the bathroom as the medic wanted to move Till to the bed. Ollie and Paul moved to help, leaving me waiting for them to return, anxiety at its highest. 

“He has an infection in a number of those gashes on his back, and that infection paired with near lethal amounts of drugs in his system has made his blood pressure too high, hence the vomiting and the dizziness and the heat coming from his skin.” The medic tells us. “He needs to rest and he needs to stay off alcohol and drugs for a while.” We’re told, “I’ll get a doctor to come and give him a prescription for the antibiotics to fight that infection, and those cuts must stay covered.” He frowns, handing me rolls of bandages and antibacterial creams. “He told me you’d do that, he didn’t want me to touch him.” His frown was furrowed deep on his brow as he nodded at us and left. We called thanks after him but he ignored us. He was probably sick of dealing with this shit by now.

“Are you going to be alright?” Ollie asked.

“Yeah, he’s down, I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe one of us should stay with him tonight? You look like you need some sleep yourself?”

“No.” Till called from the bed, “No. You can all fuck off. I’m fine.”

He rolls onto his front and I shake my head, looking back at the other two. “I’ll be fine. Go on, get some sleep. I’ll patch him up then head to bed myself…” I tell them, and they both leave looking slightly concerned. But there’s not a lot I can do about that. As the door closes I turn back to look at him, frowning as I crawl up the bed to take my place on his hips, again. 

“I’m fine.”

“Shut up Dietrich, no you aren’t.” I tell him, feeling angrier at him now more than worried. “You have to start looking after yourself, yeah? Otherwise what will happen to you? You’ll die. And then where will we be without you?” I frown, looking over the bottle of antiseptic fluid and the tubes of cream he’d given me. “We’ll be nowhere. We’ll be lost because we’ve got no singer.” I hiss at him, pouring the TCP onto his back. “And that’ll be it. No more Rammstein, no more band, no more us.” I begin wiping over the cuts, not being as careful as I should.

“You’ll just replace me.” He groans, “I know you will.” 

“You know what, Fuck you Till.” I hiss at him, pressing the TCP into the cuts on his spine, hard, letting the fluid soak in. And I knew it would hurt him. I knew it was stinging, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as him thinking he was so replaceable. “You’re not that easy to replace, you know? And we wouldn’t anyway. We work as six, and there’s no replacing any of us. If one goes, we all disband. You know that.” I shake my head and I can feel tears coming to my eyes. “A-and if you were dead, what would I do?” I stop touching him then, “Where would I be? Who would I have?” I ask him, “Because… Because you…ugh!” I let out a groan, wiping my eyes. I can’t find the words to express what I want to. “I just don’t want to love anyone else, okay?” I blurt out, looking down at the back of his head. There’s silence then, and I go back to cleaning his back up once more, gentler than before. 

“I’m sorry.” Come his voice, soft and calm.

“It’s fine. I know you’re just angry.” I tell him, helping him sit up so I can wrap the bandages around him. “This will make the most impressive costume you’ve worn yet…” I tell him, pressing a soft kiss to the back of his neck. “I do seem to spend a lot of time these days looking at the back of your head…” I say softly, wrapping my arms around him as I pin the last of the bandages in place. I hold him close to me, pressing my chest tight against his back.

“Is that a problem?”

“No… No, it’s a very nice back of a head, but I just prefer looking at your face…” I say softly, resting my chin on his shoulder, holding him close and feeling comfortable in this silence. “Till, maybe it’s time we detoxed a little?” I say softly, feeling a rumble in his chest.

“I was thinking the same thing…” He says softly, “I think we could both do with it, no?” he turns slightly to look at me. 

“Shall we do it then?” I ask him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “We won’t do any drugs or drink any alcohol for a week and just see how we feel at the end of it? Well, you’re on antibiotics now anyway so you’ve got to stay off it all…” I laugh softly.

“There’s only two types of antibiotics you can’t take with alcohol and the ones they’re going to give me are not the ones…” he tells me, “But you’re right. One week.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's going well, maybe...

It’s safe to say that this detox was going to be difficult. We both knew it, and yet we tried anyway.

Till sat huddled in a corner backstage as we waited for our cue. He was nervous. We all knew he suffered terribly with stage fright but what we hadn’t realised was that any number of drugs gave him the confidence to go on the stage and get the job done. WE hadn’t banked on him being paralysed with fear moments before going on (alright, it’s less moments and more hours). 

“How many are out there?” he asks me, wide-eyed terror staring at me. 

“Only a few…” I tell him, “Really, it’s not even that many… You’ll be fine!” I try to reassure him

“Are you kidding!?” chimes in Paul, “This is the biggest crowd we’ve ever played! Sold out show! It’ll be incredible.” At this, Till recoils drastically and goes this terrible pale colour. He looks like he’s about to vomit. “Oh, um… I mean it really isn’t that much, you know… It’s just a few… It’ll be okay!” Paul tries to pull it all back, but the damage is done. Till isn’t moving now, for definite.

I get back to my feet and push Paul away, dragging him with me out of Till’s earshot. “You are the worst, Landers. The absolute worst!” I growl at him. “We’ll be lucky if we can get him on the stage tonight! Are you fucking kidding me? Coming over and making all tha-… Ugh I just can’t even deal with you right now!” I push past him, storming off in the direction of our runners. Fuck this; we need our singer.

I return a little later, dumping a highly polished metal tray on the table, carrying a small bag of white powder and my wallet. Till watches me set up four large lines on the tray with a card I’d pulled out, and I hand him a banknote. 

“Fuck it. I though you could do this fucking show without it but as it turns out, you can’t. So just do it, okay? But this is it.” I frown, looking up at him. “No more tonight.” 

To my surprise, he hands me back the note and pushes the tray towards me. “Let me try one song, see how it goes, and then we’ll see, okay?” he tells me, and leans over the table to press a kiss to my forehead. “Thank you.” He smiles at me, sitting himself back down. “Just sit with me a while, okay?” he asks me, patting the seat next to him, “Please?” I nod and move to settle next to him, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder. 

“You’ll be okay…” I tell him, and he nods in return. “Just a few more days… You’ll feel a million times better…” 

:::::::::

“Okay; fuck, marry, kill: Alice Cooper, Angus Young and Marilyn Manson” Paul puts to Richard, and they all laugh. 

“Okay… Um. Fuck Marilyn Manson, with protection of course. Marry… Angus Young, so we could make sweet, sweet guitar playing God-like babies, and Kill Alice Cooper…” I say, looking up at Till as his hand grips mine tighter.

“You can’t kill Alice Cooper, Risch… _that’s sacrilege…_ ” He looks horrified.

“I thought you didn’t believe in God…” Flake adds in, frowning at the older man.

“No, but still.” Till insists. “And why would you want to fuck Manson?” he begins to laugh then, the calmness of post-gig exhaustion taking over his expression. It went well, thank goodness. He didn’t need anything which was my biggest worry, really. He knew it was there and he stayed away from it. To give him credit he’s a stronger person than I am; if the tables had been turned I’d have been all over that shit. But I know I don’t need it too. We’re doing this together.

He looks over at me and presses a kiss to my cheek. “Can we go back to the hotel now? I’m exhausted…”

“Oh yeah, how was it singing drug-free?” Schneider asks, propping his feet up on the little table between us, sipping his beer. 

“Not bad, terrifying at first, but it was quite nice to be aware of everything happening around me…” Till admitted, turning to look at Richard.

“Yeah, it was alright…” I tell them, but really I didn’t feel like I enjoyed myself as much as normal. I felt off being on stage sober. I felt like I was lagging behind, watching Paul bouncing around the other side of the stage, feeling too inhibited to do anything. I felt lost. That’s worrying.

Till is already on his feet by the time I know what’s going on, and he’s looking down at me expectantly. “Oh, right…” I tell him, getting to my feet. “Night boys… See you in the morning.” 

“Bright and early!” Paul grins, and we head off towards the hotel. They’ve been quite good at getting us hotels close to the venue recently, so we could walk if need be. It only meant waiting around a little longer for everyone to clear away so we weren’t swamped with fans as we left. But they have a taxi waiting outside for us, as it was earlier than normal. 

“How’re you feeling?” I ask, sliding into the backseat with him, his hand still in mine. 

“So much better…” He tells me, “You were right. We needed this. It actually felt amazing to be sober tonight. I was surprised.”

“I guess when you’ve never done it before it does feel pretty awesome, huh?” I rest my head against him and sigh softly. I feel kind of flat. I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe Till and I are experiencing this completely differently. 

“Are you okay?” He asks me.

“Fine, fine…” I tell him, “I’m just exhausted. I’ve got nothing picking me up…” I laugh softly. Really he needs this detox more than I do. He gets nasty when he does too much coke. And he always does too much. I don’t get violent or aggressive, or at least that’s what I tell myself.

“Okay. Straight to bed when we get in then…” He tells me, and I look up at him before sitting up straight. He’s adopted that fatherly voice he uses with Nele when she’s tired and ratty at the end of a long day and he wants her to sleep as soon as they’re home. I settle further against him, letting him wrap his arm around me for the short drive back to the hotel room. 

“I need to shower. I’m super sweaty…” I laugh softly, and he presses a quick kiss to my lips as the car pulls up outside the hotel. I won’t tell him the truth. He doesn’t need to know that. Not when he’s three days off the stuff and doing well. He already looks brighter, his breathing has gotten better, his eyes are full of life again and his skin is regaining its colour. He could just keep off this stuff and just stick to alcohol, maybe. 

We’re soon in our room and soon in the comfort of our bed. I look over at him and he looks so at ease. He looks a lot younger than his years. It’s weird how well this has gone for him after only a few days. I feel him slowly moving into my side, pressing kisses to my skin. I can feel his hands on me and usually I love this but I really don’t think I can handle being this close to him right now. 

“Till, I need to shower…” I groan softly, slowly sitting up. I press a soft kiss to his lips and roll off the bed, starting to strip down.

“Richard, are you sure you’re okay?” he asks me as he sits up, frowning as he kicks his boots off. 

“I’m fine, really…” I tell him, looking back. He’s started to undress, and really he needs to shower too because he’s covered in all that make up and everything but at least his back is all better now. It’s all scabbed over and the infection is gone. 

“Come on.” I tell him, nodding to the bathroom. “Let’s go.” I smile at him, and he almost leaps up like a child, and I can see the excitement in his face. It’s like whenever he finds some prop that’d go really well with the show. He gets all excited and giddy and it’s hilarious to see. His entire face lights up, it’s incredible. 

And he’s out of his clothes faster than you’d believe, and he’s testing the temperature of the water as he waits for me. I can’t help but smile, really. As terrible as I feel, this person in front of me, this intimidating, brooding, sexual being in front of me, is so affectionate that it contradicts almost everything I know about him and it makes me feel so much better about everything. He lets me get into the shower first, and slides in after me, his hands moving over my skin in such delicate patterns that you wouldn’t think possible of someone like him. He presses the gentlest kisses against my throat, and I know he’s buzzing from the show, wanting to hold onto that adrenaline rush as long as possible.

“Till…” I turn, looking up at him. He feels impossibly taller than me but he isn’t. There’s only around an inch or two difference in our height, but he just feels larger. Maybe my brain is all fucked up. He kisses me anyway, my mind just forgetting everything it wanted to say to him. 

“What?” his voice is almost a whisper as he speaks against my lips, moving his kisses down over my throat. 

“Nothing, never mind…” I tell him, sinking my fingers into his hair. He presses me into the cold tiles and there’s a relaxing contrast between the heat in our skin and the temperature of the tiles behind me. 

“No, what were you going to say?” he growls against my throat. 

“I was going to say I’m not in the mood but you changed that pretty quickly…” I laugh softly, and I feel him pull away, staring down at me. 

“We don’t have to, Richard. We can just get into bed and cuddle…?” he asks me, holding my shoulders at arms-length. He has this seriousness on his face that suggests he’s not going further until he’s heard my answer. 

“It’s fine, Till… I want this, really…”

“No. You weren’t in the mood. I shouldn’t have pushed! I’m sorry!” He tells me, moving to step out of the shower, “Let me know when you’re done and I’ll clean myself off!” he calls in the most irritatingly cheerful voice I’ve heard out of him in a long, long time.

“Till, come back here!” I demand, shutting off the water for a moment. “Get back in here now. I demand it!”

“No, Richard! You didn’t want this!” he calls from the bedroom. How dare he push all the buttons and then leave it alone. 

“Get back in here now.” I growl, stepping out of the shower. I wrap a towel around my hips and storm back to the bedroom, glaring at him as he reclines on the bed, all soaking wet and gorgeous. How dare he. “Get back in the bathroom now.” I hiss at him, pointing at the shower.

“Well neither of us is in the bathroom right now so why don’t you just come and sit down and we can settle this in here?” he poses to me, patting the bed next to him. He was playing this game all along. I just can’t keep up anymore. What the hell is he doing to me? I do as he asks, moving to sit on the bed, at the furthest point away with my back to him. I’m not giving in that easily. “Oh come on, Risch…” He purrs, “Come and sit a little closer. Please?” I feel him pulling at the back of my towel, his fingertips grazing the base of my spine. 

“No.” I slap his fingers away from me, folding my arms across my chest and I can hear him laughing behind me. 

“Please Richard…” he begs, and I can hear him shifting on the bed, the mattress behind me depressing under his weight as he moves closer to me. I can feel the heat of his skin near me before he touches me. “Come on, come to bed… We’ll shower properly in a while.” He purrs against my neck. I can’t help it. He knows my weak spots. His hands travel down my chest as he rests himself against my back. “I’m sorry… Come on…” He whispered against my clavicle.

I just become so compliant under his hands. “Fine…” I groan softly, slowly moving to turn. He lies back on the bed and I crawl up on top of him. “But just so you know, I’m not happy about it.” I frown, sitting up on his hips. “You being so sexy and seductive. I can’t handle it.” I laugh softly, moving to kiss him deeply. I do love this man. 

“My bag is on the floor with all the stuff in it…” he whispers against my lips, his hands moving over my sides, my hips, rolling them against his. I can feel his growing erection pressed against my thigh. 

“That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me…” I sigh softly, getting up to grab the small bottle of lube from his bag and in the process throwing a condom towards him. “Because I don’t know where you’ve been…” I laugh softly, and so does he, finally fishing out what I am looking for. I crawl back onto his hips and push the bottle into his hands, pressing kisses to his chest. He pulls me close to him, wrapping his arms around my middle before one hand dips down, gently pushing into me. I prefer it like this, being so close to him, but I know he likes being on top. I don’t know why, everything ends in the same result, so who cares what position it’s in, right? But he’s doing that thing where he’s hooked his fingers into me and he’s pressing all the right buttons and it’s like pushing fairly effeminate moans out of me. I think he gets some sick kind of satisfaction from emasculating me constantly. But in a way I kind of like it. I’m in control but not in control, if that makes sense. 

He removes his fingers finally before letting me go, so I can sit up and gently settle myself on top of him. I can feel the tension in his belly as he tries not to move as I sink further. And with a few moments, I am ready to move. As I roll my hips against his, he meets me with every movement, his fingers gripping tightly at me, and I can feel the bruises forming there already. 

We move together, and he begins thrusting his hips up against me, stopping only to pull me down to him so he can kiss me. It’s strange that he’s the first lover I’ve had where they’re keen on kissing during sex. I’ve never encountered someone like him before. I mean I’ve said before that he’s very affectionate, but he really is. He loves to kiss during sex, and he enjoys cuddling afterwards, and he likes cuddling at any time. And he’s very handsy, surprisingly. But when he’s fucking me, his kisses are different to when he’s not, it’s like he needs something to do with his mouth because he definitely doesn’t like moaning, which I find even weirder. 

His hips move harder against me, and I feel his hand wrap around my cock, teasing me towards orgasm. When it finally comes, I feel every muscle in my body tense, his hips thrust harder, more erratically as he comes, that warm feeling spreading through me as I collapse on top of him.

We lay there for the longest time. He just held me tightly on top of him, not moving, not speaking, only tracing small patterns on my skin, travelling down my spine. I buried my face against the crook of his neck and stayed there, not wanting to move or speak, for once. I just wanted to stay like this. 

“Are you okay?” he finally broke the silence between us. 

“I’m okay…” I tell him, though even through the post-orgasm high I can feel that emptiness creeping back in. What is it that’s causing that? How can I stop it? I don’t know what this feeling is. It’s like this emptiness inside me that hasn’t been filled up in a while. It’s like being hungry and not being able to eat enough to stop that feeling. Maybe this has something to do with Till? It’d be very much like me to start hating this relationship now that things are starting to look up. Maybe it’s that instant karma coming back to kick me in the ass? Or maybe it’s just adding it to the list of shit I’ve done to bring me back as something small and pathetic. After all, now that things are going well between Till and I, it only seems fitting that Midas turns the whole thing to shit, right? The king of shit, ruining everything once again? And by ruining this relationship, would I be ruining this band? I look down at him, and he seems quite contented where he is, and there’s this emotion in his eyes that I’ve never really seen before. Not just in him, but in anyone. _No, don’t really love me, Till. That’s just something we tell each other, remember. Love is a fleeting emotion that is fickle and unkind. You said that. You told me that. Don’t actually fall in love with me! I’m not good enough for your love._

“Are you okay?” I ask him, just to break the internal monologue happening inside my brain.

“Mhmm.” He breathes against me, and slowly rolls us over so he’s next to me, holding my tightly to him. 

“I definitely need to shower now…” I tell him, pressing a soft kiss to his throat. 

“Same…”

“Well… Are we going to move?” I ask.

“Five more minutes…” He says against the top of my head. But it’s never just five more minutes, is it. We’re going to wake up a hot, sweaty, sticky mess. I know we will because he’ll fall asleep holding me and I won’t be able to escape. At least internally moaning about him will help me ignore this sinking feeling in my stomach, and the void growing inside my brain.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confession must come from somewhere.

I wish I could tell you that I haven’t fucked up majorly, but I have.

As he punches me straight in the face I can only think that this is how it’s supposed to end. But actually, I never wanted to hurt him. I’m just fucking idiot with no concept of right and wrong until it’s in hindsight. _Yeah, I shouldn’t have done that_ is a recurrent phrase in my life and as much as I wish it would go away and get better, it never will. 

He storms out of my apartment, leaving me with a well-deserved black eye and a nose which I am certain is broken. I definitely deserve it though. It’s just a shame because we’re going onto the next leg of our tour in a week. I hope he’s calmed down enough by then, because our fans shouldn’t have to suffer for my stupidity. 

I take a seat on the sofa in the living room, allowing the nose bleed I’m experiencing to run its course into the tissues shoved up my nostrils and I begin to tackle the swelling in my eye with a bag of frozen peas. I need a moment to reflect on everything that lead up to this moment, and fully understand why I’m such an arsehole. Really, I’m lucky he only hit me once.

I guess when we got home from the last leg of the tour I needed some time apart from everyone. It’s not hard to believe that when you’re in a confined space with the same five guys for four weeks at a time you definitely feel like you’re ready to commit murder by the end of it. Four weeks on, four weeks off; that’s how we tour. And as much as I wanted to stay with Till, I needed time to just decompress and get back to normal before we started touring again, so we both decided to spend a few days apart to get our heads on straight before the next leg. 

But I’m the worst, and I constantly refer to my Midas touch, right? Well it doesn’t take long for me to fuck everything up. Well I suppose I better explain everything in retrospect, right?

::::::::

As I got home to my apartment, it felt like an absolute weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and I collapsed into my bed and spent the best part of fifteen hours asleep. I needed that though. I’d not slept much on the tour, apart from occasionally falling asleep on Till during travel, but I can’t say I spent a lot of time asleep in bed. He’d be snoring away next to me but there was nothing I could do to make myself sleep. It’s incredibly difficult to force yourself to do anything when you fall into a complete state of apathy. You just want to shout from the roof tops that you do not give a fuck anymore. It’s not something that you can try and see whether it works for you because some people have this inbuilt mechanism that doesn’t allow them to stop caring. Me, on the other hand, that disappeared a long time ago, worn down by years of self-loathing, terrible relationships and mind-numbing drug use. It’s that void, like a black hole sucking everything up in its path. Sometimes, really not caring anymore can be incredibly liberating, free of all inhibitions and self-doubt. You do you, right? Well it’s more debilitating than that. It hurts those around you, endlessly. I spent a whole day in bed staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know what to do with myself, I just knew that I needed to spend time away from him.

But this is where things get hazy. I remember finding some gear in my bedroom somewhere. I remember heading out into Berlin for a catch up with some old friends and I remember drinking a lot of whiskey. What I don’t remember is how this person ended up in my bed. When I woke, I knew something was terribly wrong. I could feel that anxiety creeping up from the pit of my stomach. I felt a warmth next to me, and as I looked there was a girl lying there. She can’t have been more than about twenty-two, long blonde hair, deeply tanned skin and she looked angelic as she slept next to me.

_Oh shit._

She slowly turned over and pulled the covers with her, curling up in the foetal position on the other side of the bed. I slowly turned to sit up, looking around. There was a condom wrapper lying on the floor, and wads of tissue in the bin by the desk. That’s good. At least I had the good sense to wrap it up last night, or maybe she did. Who knows? I get to my feet and head to the bathroom to look at myself. I’m a mess. I’ve officially decided that I am a disgusting human being. And as I look back at the girl in my bed, I feel a rising pang of guilt dragging my stomach up to my chest. 

_I’ve fucked up bad this time._

Luckily, she’s a sensible one and she dresses herself quickly and heads out the door while I’m still in the bathroom. I doubt she intended for this to happen as much as I did and she disappears without a word to save the embarrassment on both parts. I crawled back into bed and wrapped myself up in the covers, holding them close to me like a cocoon. I was on a terrible come down. I didn’t even know what I’d taken once I’d blacked out, but it must have been nasty. No food, only water today. I’ve got to sweat this thing out.

I spent a few days in radio silence after that. Till left a few messages on my phone, and I let him know I was alive so he didn’t worry, but stayed away from him. I needed to get my head straight before I spoke to him or did anything. I don’t know what my train of thought was, but I decided at some point that I wasn’t going to tell him. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? And no one who was there that night would tell him because he doesn’t know any of them, and they don’t know him, right? And he wasn’t there so he didn’t see anything so what would be the point of causing unnecessary heart ache for my own selfish reasons?

He came to me a few days later, and his first words to me were _”Richard, you look like shit. What have you been doing?”_

“Oh, hi Richard, love of my life, you look as beautiful as ever! I’ve missed you terribly” I retort, mimicking his voice in a way that sounds absolutely nothing like him before heading to the kitchen to make some coffee. I could do with something to make me feel a little more human.

“So how much did you do last night then?” he asks me in that accusatory tone that I know so well.

“None, I haven’t left the house since we got back.”

“Why do you look like you’re on the worst come down ever then?” he has a frown on his face.

“I don’t know.”

That ends the conversation and he takes a seat at the table, taking his coffee as it’s handed to him. 

“I’ve been working on some new songs while we’ve been off.” He says, slowly sipping at his coffee, “But I wanted your advice on one of them. I got stuck for words because I want to work a phrase into a song but I can’t figure out how…” he tells me, pulling his notebook from his pocket. 

“Something something something, murder of crows, something something something…” he reads, handing me the book. “I can’t work out how to do it but I really love that phrase. I think it’s pretty cool that a group of crows is called a murder.”

“Very Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds,” I tell him, “I have no idea right now Till. Let me think on it?” I sit opposite him, putting the book down between us. 

“Sure thing,” he says, as he picks up my hands and presses a kiss to my knuckles. 

We sit for a while in silence, and it’s comfortable. Usually I like to fill every second with sound because silence makes me feel uneasy, but for once, I feel as though everything has settled in me. That emptiness is still there, that everlasting void into which everything falls is still there but I feel more in control now. Maybe it’s what I needed? Maybe I needed to do those horrible things to remind myself that I am human and I am in control. I finally feel settled. But of course, that never lasts long.

As I look into that face and see him scribbling away in that note book, only one feeling rises from that pit in my stomach. I look down at my hands, guilt running cold through me, waking every sense in my body up and heightening it. It's funny how all that resolve I had earlier disappears when he's sat in front of me, and my earlier decision to not tell him seems like a terrible idea as I sit there and look at him. I can feel the anxiety pulsing harder and harder through my veins and here comes an attack. I slowly get to my feet, not saying a word and walk out of the kitchen to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. 

_Oh shit. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. What am I going to do? I have to tell him! But I already lied. But I need to tell him! This is going to come out anyway! Someone will have seen us! Someone will know!_ I begin to panic, rational thoughts leaving my brain leaving me blind. _Oh god what am I going to do? What am I going to do?!_ The palpitations start in my chest and the tears come, and I try to swallow the lump, like someone trying to open an umbrella in my throat. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I hear a knock on the door, “Risch, are you okay?” And I lean over the toilet and empty the contents of my stomach there. I can’t stop.

“Richard, are you feeling okay?!” comes his voice again, and it doesn’t provide the comfort it should because I know I’ve fucked this up. Somehow, he unlocks the door and is standing in front of me, watching me dry heave into the toilet. “Jesus Christ Richard, what’s happened? Are you okay?!” He moves to fill a glass with water and pushes it into my hand. But I can’t keep it down. Anxiety preventing me from doing anything but curling up against the bath and sob into my knees. I am a pathetic mess, I know this. And all this caring attitude coming from him is making me feel worse. He doesn’t deserve this and I don’t deserve him. “Richard, you’re clearly overwhelmed right now. I’m just going to sit here with you until you calm down so we can talk properly, okay?” he tells me, and moves awkwardly to crowd into the space next to me against the bath tub. We sit for around an hour, and he has his arm around me, and he’s letting me sob against him, brushing my hair from my face and drying my tears and I don’t deserve any of this. 

“I’ve done a terrible thing.” I tell him, slowly sitting up.

“Well if it’s about doing drugs I can tell already so don’t even worry about it,” Till says, shifting so he can look at me properly. 

“N-no… Till it’s not that, it’s so much worse…”

“You haven’t murdered someone, have you?!” he asks, frowning at me.

“No! Till, will you let me finish, please? I need to tell you this.” I say, wiping at my face, gearing myself up. I feel so anxious. He’s going to do either one of two things. He’ll get up and leave or he’ll beat the shit out of me and leave. Either way he’s leaving. “I cheated on you.” I tell him, unable to look at him. This is a silence that makes me uncomfortable. I take a quick glance at him, and he’s not looking at me. I know this silence all too well.

“How?”

“W-what do you mean?”

“How did you do it? When? Where? With who?” He growls, those eyes going cold as they stare at me. 

“I don’t know her name…” I blurt out quickly, “I don’t even remember it happening. I was out with some old friends the other night and got blind drunk and I woke up and she was there next to me…” I tell him, and I’m shaking. I’m terrified now. 

He moves awkwardly to get to his feet, and I can see the pain in his knee is worsened from having sat in an awkward position for too long. He grips my collar and pulls me up to my feet, shoving my out of the bathroom. 

“Why, Richard? Why?”

“I don’t know… Till I don’t know why? I don’t even remember it happening!” I tell him, “P-please, I’m sorry!”

“What the fuck are you saying please for?!” he shoves me hard, “What the hell do you have to beg for now? Huh?”

“Please, forgive me Till, Please! I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you Kruspe.” He hisses through gritted teeth, gripping my collar once more, pulling me close to him. “What do you gain from fucking telling me this, hmmm?” he asks, and he’s gone ice cold. There’s no warmth in his gaze, there’s no warmth in his skin. That wall that I broke in his has gone straight back up. “Why have you told me this? Is it so I know there’s someone out there who’s a bigger fucking bitch than you are? Hmmm?” He’s catching the skin under my shirt in his grip, pinching hard at the nerves in my shoulder. It makes my head spin. 

“Get off me!” I try to push at him, “Let me go! I’ll explain properly just let me go!”

He shoves me hard into the wall and I hear his knuckles crack the plasterboard next to my head as he holds me there. “You have to ask me nicely.” He growls, and I know immediately what’s happening. Till has this cruel streak in him, and while what I’ve done to him is terrible, he’ll make me suffer for what I’ve done. His hand is around my throat, and he's holding me tightly. He's pushing so hard I can hardly breathe. He's squeezing the life from me, and I can feel my pulse racing against the pressure of his fingers, and he's pressing harder, squeezing tighter. 

“N-no! Get off me!” I choke out, squirming under him, trying desperately to get away. “Get. Off!”

He grips my chin and forces me to stare at him. “Say please.” He hisses and holds my gaze until it becomes so uncomfortable that I don’t have a choice. He’s so close to me, and I can feel his anger radiating from him. I can hear his heart breaking. I have done this. I can’t stop myself sobbing, but deep down I know I deserve this. I don’t know why I thought he wasn’t going to act out this anger on me. I don't want to give in. I want to be stubborn, like usual. I want to fight against him and try to turn this how it usually goes, but the way he's squeezing my windpipe, I'd say he's heading to try and kill me. The tears spill out from my eyes and down my cheeks as I claw at his fingers, trying desperately to get loose, but he won't budge. I have no other option. 

_”Please…”_

He drops me to the floor and he’s pacing. 

“How could you do this Richard? How could you do this to me? H-have you done this to me before?” he asks, staring down at me. He's asking me too many questions. My brain can't process everything he's asking me in quick succession. I cover my face with my hands, shaking my head. 

“N-no. N-never before!” There’s a terrible mix of fear and guilt mixing in my stomach and it’s making my head spin. “I haven’t I swear! Please Till I’m sorry.”

“You aren’t sorry though, are you? Are you?” He shouts, looking down at me. Any affection left in his tone is gone. “You’re not sorry at all. You feel guilty, and you told me to try and make yourself feel better, what did you think this was going to achieve? Look at me when I’m speaking to you!” his shouts, moving to rip my hands away from my face. “Why, Richard? Am I not good enough for you? Do I not treat you well? Do I not love you enough!?” he asks me, dropping to his knees in front of me. “Answer me!”

“You’re more than enough Till!” I reach for his hands, holding them tightly in mine but he pulls them from me, “I’m sorry, Till. I’m so sorry! I love you, I really do! Please, believe me!” He grips my hair and pushes me to the floor, pinning me down.

"Was she worth it, Richard? Was she good to you?" He growls at me, his crushing weight against my chest, holding me down. "Did she touch you in every single way you wanted?!" He hissed.

"No! Till, please stop! I'm sorry! I love you!"

“ _Love?_ ” he spits out, staring at me, “You love me? You? You don’t know what that word means, Richard. You’ve never understood it. You’ve never fully appreciated the consequences of loving someone.” He got up, and I followed him, scrambling to my feet. “You can’t even love yourself, Richard. You’re a fucking mess. I have to go. I can’t even look at you anymore. You make me fucking sick. You don’t know how to love. You are nothing Richard. You will always be nothing. You’re a disgrace.” He turns on his heels, and I reach for his hands, grabbing what I can to pull him back.

“No. No please! Don’t leave! Please!”

And that’s when he hits me. He catches the inside of my eye, against the bridge of my nose and it pushes me back on my ass. He stares down at me for a moment, as I look up at him, feeling the hot blood flushing out my nose, running down my face. “P-please don’t leave me.” I beg him. I know I'm a pathetic mess.

But he doesn’t say anymore. He walks out the door, slamming it behind him. 

I didn’t really know what to do with myself at that point. I sat on the floor for a long time, until I couldn’t feel my legs anymore and then slowly got up to clean myself up. I realise now what a monumental fuck up I am, and how I’ve ruined probably the only good thing in my life right now, because this will no doubt be the end of this band. Till won’t want to be anywhere near me anymore, and we all agreed; when one of us leaves, we disband as a group. I’ve really fucked this up. He’s always known what to say to dig deepest into my soul and poke at my biggest insecurities.

:::::::

I make my way to the tour bus that’s picking us all up from the record label building. As I approach, I can see Paul, Ollie and Schneider all stood around chatting. I can feel that anxiety heading up from my belly to my brain as I get closer and catch a quick glimpse of what they’re talking about.

_”He slept with some woman apparently…”_

_”Till was really angry when he phoned me…”_

_”This is so typical of Risch-… Oh wait, he’s coming.”_

I look up at the three of them and Ollie and Schneider turn and climb onto the bus. They don’t say anything or do anything, they just turn away and leave. 

“So everyone knows then?” I ask Paul, and he shakes his head, turning away.

“No, you know what? I’m so fucking angry at you Richard. We do all know. How dare you. How fucking dare you. You’re just such a fucking idiot, you know that?” Paul shakes his head once more, climbing onto the bus, leaving me in the cold, alone. As I climb onto the bus, they’ve all taken separate seats and they’re just waiting on Flake now. I see Till’s form under a blanket near the front and decide it’s best to head to the back and avoid everyone. I don’t think I have felt more anxious about anything in my whole life. My nose starts to throb once more, but that’s probably the blood pressure increasing from feeling so anxious. 

We’re soon on the road, and I curl up into my blanket, burying myself under it to block them all out. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I’m not sure I can even make it through the next four weeks. I need to do something about this, but I don’t know what. I don’t know how to make this better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it but it was 100% a struggle. I've been struggling to write anything recently but I found putting on a rain and thunder sound generator helps a lot. Like, it's a distraction of noise but I can't then stop what I'm doing to sing along or anything. I think Classical music does the same.
> 
> Anyway, I'm going to go and wrap Richard up in a big blanket now and cuddle him like a burrito. It'll work itself out, I'm sure. I'm probably going to come back and edit this because I'm not 100% happy with it!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard's taken too much again. Written from Till's perspective.

“I can’t believe he’s missing!” Paul slams the door to the hotel room hard enough to make the whole room shake. “Did he say anything to anyone? Has anyone heard from him?” He’s a tiny ball of anger at this moment in time, storming around, slamming every door he encounters, even if he’s not walking through it. He’s slamming his cup down when he drains the coffee from it, and slams the remote control down once he’s turned the TV off, much to the protests of Flake.

“No, he’s not answering his phone… I can’t get through to him.” Schneider adds, looking helplessly at the screen of his phone, fumbling with the keys, sending texts after text to Richard. “I’ve been trying him for an hour…”

“What the hell does he think he’s playing at? First all this shit with Till and now this? What the hell is wrong with him?!” Paul shouts. It kind of hurts me a little bit when he brings this up.

“He’s probably panicking.” I say quietly, looking around them. “Look, as far as I’m aware, this is the first time he cheated on me, and that’s what he tells me, and then all of you have been complete arseholes towards him despite it being none of your business and he’s probably panicked and run off somewhere.” I add, looking over the four of them.

“Well sorry for trying to stand up for you.” Paul grunts under his breath, taking a seat on the bed.

“Well I’m a grown man, Paul. I appreciate the gesture but you snapping at him every time he opens his mouth wasn’t ever going to help anything. It was making him worse, and putting me on edge. You know what he’s like. He’s a worrier, and he’s been punished enough. It doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at him, and I haven’t forgiven him yet, but I’d rather him here and safe with us than out there on his own in a city none of us know very well. Okay?”

Paul looks up at me, as do the others and we sit in silence for a while.

“Okay, well where would he have gone? He’s never done this before so none of us know what to expect…” Paul says, rubbing at his eyes. “Where are we going to find him? Should we tell management? What are they going to say?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” I tell him bluntly. “Let me try calling him. I haven’t given it a go yet. He might answer my call more than yours because all he’s seen for the last few weeks is you three gossiping like mother hens, talking about him. He’s not going to answer to you for another lecture.” I say, getting to my feet and ignore the protests from Schneider, Ollie and Paul. I make my way to the corridor and close the door behind me, wandering down to the large window that looked out over the city. I dialled his number and pressed the phone to my ear, hearing the tone ringing. I didn’t expect the line to click to life, but it did. 

“ _Till?_ ” 

“Richard.” I could hear his breathing heavily on the other end of the line. “Where are you?” I ask him simply, hearing his breath shaking. He was high.

“ _I took too much, Till. I can’t stop everything spinning_ ” 

“Okay, but where are you?” I could hear pumping music in the background of the call. At this point it’s almost five in the morning. “Can you get to a taxi to come home?”

“ _Please, come and get me. Till, I’m so dizzy, please. I can’t see properly!_ ”

I sigh softly, rubbing my eyes. “Tell me where you are.”

He gives me the name of a club we passed on the way into the city and begs me to hurry. I tell the others I’m going alone, and take my jacket, and get into a taxi that’s waiting in front of the hotel to find him. 

As I arrive, the club is thriving, and while it’s approaching six in the morning, the party doesn’t seem to be dying down. _I’m too old for this shit._ I tell myself, heading inside to try to find him. I had no idea where he’d be, or who he’d be with, or what state he was physically in, but it had been quieter when he called me, so I checked the bathroom first. 

“Richard?” I call out, pushing the doors to the cubicles open. Low and behold, there he was, huddled in the corner of a cubicle, the door half open, his head in his hands.

“Richard.” I say, pushing the door open further, crowding in with him.

I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the state of him. His eyes were so dark and bloodshot, his nose bleeding, his skin almost transparent. He looked haggard; he didn’t look like Richard at all. I dropped down to my knees in front of him, feeling the cold, hard grooves between the tiles digging into my skin, causing discomfort there. “Jesus Christ Richard, how much did you take?” I ask, reaching for tissue paper, dabbing at his face.

“I don’t know… But I couldn’t get it to stop.” He tells me. “It just kept bleeding. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Okay.” I say, shoving some tissue up his nose. Now wasn’t the time to lecture him on why he hadn’t called one of us anyway if he was panicking. It made sense to me that he’d tried to deal with it alone. I had no idea how long he’d been here, but he needed to leave. I needed to get home out. “Come on. Home.” I tell him, getting to my feet. I offer him my hand and he takes it. He’s shaking, and his hands are cold and clammy, so unlike his hands normally. He staggered a little, to which I pulled him close to me. There was no heat in his body at all, the small sliver of skin exposed above his belt felt like ice against my fingertips, but he was dripping with sweat. “It’ll be okay.” I tell him, holding him a little closer to me. Too much cocaine. Too much of everything.

As we get outside, I wrap my jacket around his shoulders and pull him close to me, letting him rest against my chest while we wait to be picked up. He’s shivering against me, his hands hanging loosely by my sides, gripping my shirt. He’s exhausted, which isn’t surprising. From what I’d heard Paul saying, Richard hadn’t really slept properly for the best part of a week.

“I’m sorry Till.” He mumbles. His admission takes me by surprise, and he buries his face further against my chest. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess.” He tells me, slowly moving away to stand up straight, swaying slightly. The taxi arrives and we climb in. 

“It’s not your fault.” I tell him, “I’m the only one with any real right to be mad at you, not the others and they’ve been terrible to you.” I say, taking his hand. “Let’s just get back so you can sleep this off, okay?” I watch him, and the words seem to be registering in his brain very slowly, or all too quickly; he doesn’t fully understand what I’m saying to him, I know this. “You need sleep.” I tell him simply and clearly and he nods, bundling into the taxi before resting his head against my shoulder. 

As we arrive back at the hotel, I knock and let the other’s know that I’ve got him and he’s safe before taking Richard to my room. He could do without Paul nagging at him right now. I put him down on the bed, watching him a moment. He removes the tissue from his nose and tosses it into the bin by the dresser. The bleeding seems to have stopped now, and he seems a lot calmer than before. This was the first time the two of us had been alone since we’d come back onto the tour. I’d not spent any time with him in the last two weeks, I only ever really saw him on stage. It’s surprising how different someone looks in the harsh light of day compared to their magnificent stage presence. On the stage, Richard looked almost regal. He looked as though he belonged there. He owned his space and there was no intrusion in that zone. The stage was his. But now, here, with the sunlight washing the white hotel room out, he looked small and helpless, sickly and wounded; he looked nothing like the guitarist of Rammstein. He looked empty.

“What’s going on, Richard?” I ask him. He shakes his head, groaning softly.

“I’m a fucking idiot, that’s what’s going on.” He tells me, lying back on the bed. “W-why are you being so nice to me anyway? You hate me.” He has a frown on his face, and the lines in his skin look so much deeper than they should. He looks so much older than his years. He looks so unhappy. I can’t answer his question though, because I don’t have an answer. I don’t know why I’m being so kind to him. I don’t know why I wanted to help him. But looking at him now, I knew exactly what he was feeling. 

“You’re not an idiot, Richard,” I tell him, moving to sit next to him and he sits up, “You’re just not good at dealing with anything, are you?” I ask him, taking his hand in mine. His fingers are freezing. “Come on. You need to shower and get warm. You’re freezing.” I tell him, dragging him up to his feet and to the bathroom. He leans on me as he undresses and it’s startling how his body is deteriorating in front of us all. He’s covered in bruises that I’m certain even he doesn’t know the story behind and he’s thinned down a fair amount. He’s losing that shape to his shoulders and chest. It all seems to be sinking in on itself. He sits himself down in the bath as the warm water from the shower floods over him. He doesn’t feel safe enough to stand on his own, so he sits, pulling his knees to his chest. It feels odd looking at him now. He doesn’t look like Richard anymore. It doesn’t feel right to see him naked; he’s not my lover anymore. I leave him a moment, much to his protest and order a large serving of whatever hot breakfast they can bring us to the room and draw the curtains closed, grabbing the spare blankets from the wardrobe, shoving them into my case. They look warmer than the ones we have on the coach. 

The room service arrives just as he calls me from the shower. I hear the water stop but I don’t hear any attempts from him to move. “Stay there.” I tell him, letting the room service into the room. It smells amazing, and I send a text to Paul, letting him know we’ll be eating in my hotel room. As I enter the bathroom, he’s already pulled a towel over himself.

“I can’t get up.” He sniffles, rubbing at his eyes. I help him to his feet and we move back to the bedroom. He doesn’t bother putting clothes on, just pulls the towel a little tighter around him and crawls into the nest of sheets and pillows waiting for him. 

“You need to eat something.” I tell him, placing the plate of food on the bed in front of him, handing him a knife and fork. “Eat, Richard.”

“I’m going to throw up, Till. I can’t eat anything.”

“It’s better for you to have something to throw up than to dry heave. Now eat.”

He does as he’s told, picking up a strip of bacon and chewing it over. For someone who didn’t want to eat anything because he felt sick, he demolished the large plate of food before him, including the fried tomatoes, which he usually hates. He downs the entire pot of coffee they’d brought up for us and I was lucky to get one cup out of it. He eats like he’s not seen food in months, and when he’s finished, he sits back against the headboard and pulls the sheets and blankets up around himself. We sit in an amicable silence for a while, sipping hot coffee and staring aimlessly towards the television, showing the latest news. It felt different, but it felt the same. We’d done this before. This felt so familiar to me. 

“I’m sorry Till.” He breaks the silence, and he’s staring at me. “I’m sorry I fucked everything up.”

“Don’t, Richard. Please, I’m really not in the right frame of mind for this talk.” I tell him, seeing how wounded he is. “I’ve not forgiven you yet, but I’m not angry anymore.” I take his hand in mine, giving it a soft squeeze. “You hurt my pride more than anything, and you broke my trust. So it will take a while to fix that, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And no more of this self-destructive behaviour, please? That’s meant to be my job, not yours.” And he laughs at that. “But I’m serious, Richard. You need to stop this. We need you as much as you need us. So let’s sort this out, okay?” And he nods. He looks so passive like this. The lights are on but nobody is home. 

“I am sorry though…” He tells me, and moves to curl up, resting his head on my shoulder. 

“I know you are.” I say, putting my arm around him. My feelings are far less important at this moment than his recovery. I feel him slowly drift off against me, his hair leaving a large wet patch on my shirt, but it doesn’t matter really. He needs to be comfortable.

Maybe we can get past this. Maybe we can get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I stressed over this so much because firstly, it's not as long as I wanted it to be and secondly it's from Till's perspective and fifthly I hate everything right now.
> 
> I thank you all for messaging me on tumblr. I'm sorry I've been so lax on updating this stuff recently but I've been really busy doing heaps of nothing. So here it is! 
> 
> More feels to come in chapter 7.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's getting there.

_Mein Liebling,_

_I wanted to write all of this down because I feel like if I speak then I won’t express myself to the fullest. I’ve never been very good with words, which is why that’s usually your forte, but if I can edit myself then maybe it won’t matter so much._

_I’ve apologised verbally a million times to you but if I can get it across in writing maybe you’ll understand the position I’m in. You said you weren’t in the right frame of mind to talk about it; well at least if it’s written, then you can read this when you’re ready to listen._

_During the last leg of our tour, we decided to cut everything out that wasn’t necessary and we tried to go clean. That worked so well for you, and in a way, I’m jealous, because all I experienced was this large, gaping black hole inside me that couldn’t be filled, no matter what I did. I felt empty, and cold, and alone. I didn’t feel like I could talk to you or anyone about it, and now we’re out the other side I feel like I can explain it to you._

_I know that you understand the feelings of depression. I know you understand this more than anyone, so I’m not going to rhapsodise about how tragic it is for you. You understand the deep, dark void that lives within, making it near impossible to enjoy anything. Well that void was filled temporarily by drugs and the way we were and as unhealthy as it was, it felt complete to me. We had turbulence in our relationship but it worked for us. You already know how depression works, how it fools you into thinking you’re okay and that things are fine before crashing everything down at the slightest little hiccup._

_What you might not understand though is the extent to which I love you. From the minute I put my eyes on you, sitting in that tiny little studio you’d made for yourself, weaving those stupid baskets, the moment you opened your mouth and that angelic voice rose from your chest, I have loved you. Unbelievably I heard you before I saw you, and I needed to have that voice for myself. Call me selfish, but it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard, and it only continues to drag me into its orbit and bleed me dry of everything I have. You have owned my heart and soul for years now, Till, you don’t understand how long. I don’t know when you fell in love with me, or why, but I can pinpoint the exact date and time to the second that I fell so deeply in love with you I thought I’d drown._

_We’d just finished recording Herzaleid and it was perfect. You were perfect and I distinctly remember spending the best part of our time in the studio being completely enamoured with your voice and the way you manipulated it. But then, you have the most beautiful singing voice. It’s impressive that you can manipulate your voice in such a gorgeous way to get all those creepy, badass tones in there, but when you’re just singing it’s one of the most beautiful sounds you could possibly imagine. I know you don’t hear it, but I do. Nothing had happened between us at this point. I was vaguely aware that you were entirely uninterested in me, but I was so obsessed with you. That’s the only way I could describe it. It was an obsession. I wanted to be around you as much as I possibly could. Good lord I couldn’t get enough. I guess, in a way, I’ve always had a bit of an addictive personality, but you were my first addiction. You were this stoic beauty, and you had no idea how beautiful you were. I just wanted to be around you at all times, and it wasn’t until we’d finished recording and I had to spend some time apart from you that I began to realise that it was far more than an obsession. I slowly realised how very much in love with you I was. It happened so slowly, and then all at once. I hadn’t expected it at all. I fell into that pit so fast it made my head spin, and I knew I never wanted another. I just wanted you._

_I know I may have done some questionable things to get you into this band, but you were the best fit. I couldn’t have anyone else in your position. You’re not meant for Drums, you’re made for front and centre. You’re Till Fucking Lindemann for Christ’s sake! And if I knew then what I know about you now, I wouldn’t have felt guilty in the slightest for what I did to get you here. It was worth it. It was worth every single minute of the guilt I felt. You were made for this, Till, even if you don’t think you are._

_I’ve not been good to you though. I know I haven’t. I forced you into this band, I took advantage of your feelings for me to gain what I wanted, and I purposely wound you up to keep you around. I have been a monster, I know it. I understand that now more than anything. In all those years I never once dreamed of setting eyes on another human being because I had you. And in a moment of weakness, I slipped, and ruined everything. I’m not, for a second, going to pretend that it was an accident. I can’t blame it on fate. It was wholly in my control and I took advantage of the situation. But I realised my mistake very quickly. I was going to keep it a secret, but like everything in our relationship, I couldn’t. I couldn’t hold it in, knowing that you put so much faith and trust in me, and I’d broken that._

_It’s common knowledge that I’m a monumental fuck-up. We all know this. But you made me want to not be. You made me want to be better, not just for us, but really for myself. That’s why we lasted so long, isn’t it? Because we had each other. Not just us two, but the six of us._

_I fucked up, Till. And I want to make it right. I want to make everything between us right again and I want us to get back on track. I understand that you might not ever want to be with me again, but I love you so I will wait. I’ll wait for you forever, Till._

_I imagine that you’re going to finally read this once we’re finished touring and everything is done. I imagine you’re going to need time to decompress and fully take in all the information I’ve thrown at you in this letter, and that’s understandable._

_I’m going away for a while, and I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I need to take some time to just sit back and assess everything. But I’ll be here for you when you’re ready. If anyone knows how to reach out to me it’s you._

_I love you, Till Lindemann._

_Yours forever and always_

_Richard._

 

I look through the letter before handing it to Paul.

“He was right. He knew I’d not look at it till we were home…” I tell him, rubbing my eyes with my hands. “What do you think?”

I watch Paul scan the letter a few times quickly, a small frown gracing his forehead. “He’s explained everything, really? And not very succinctly, either…”

“Well you know he loves the sound of his own voice…” I sigh, taking the letter back. “What do I do?” I ask, sitting back in the chair.

“He’s definitely not in a good place, mentally, is he? Do you know where he is?”

“I think so? But he might have gone back to New York…” I tell him, sighing again. “He never makes things easy, does he…?”

“You could just call him?” Paul offers, sipping his cup of coffee. 

“If he’s gone to the states his phone won’t be working, will it?”

“You know just as much as I do. Maybe try it anyway? He might still be here? Who knows! He’s not speaking to me, Ollie or Doom right now!” He tells me, “He’s not talking to us because he caught us bitching about him…” He looks rather guilty at that, and I know he’s starting to worry about Richard just as much as I was.

“Okay, I’ll try calling him later…” I say, getting to my feet. I pack up the letter into its envelope and put it back into the inside pocket of my jacket. “I’ll let you know if I find him, huh?” I offer. 

“Sure, just so we know he’s safe and can start thinking of how we can apologise to him…”

I laugh at that, and Paul pulls me into a hug. “It’ll be okay.” He tells me, and I nod. I know it will. I just need to think this letter over a little more than I already have.

It’s always a little more complicated than it appears. On the one hand, I do love Richard. I know I do, but on the other hand he did cheat on me. While I’ve not been a saint in previous relationships, I never cheated on Richard. Our close proximity made it almost impossible for cheating to happen, and when we weren’t together I’d always been so exhausted by him that I didn’t need anyone else in my life. It’s always just been him. So what am I going to do?

I sit down in my living room and thumb through the pages again. I think back over our relationship and try to imagine exactly when I realised I loved him. I’m not sure when I knew, it all seemed to happen so quickly, and before I was even aware, we’d been a couple for almost three years. I’ve got to hand it to Richard, when he wants something, there isn’t much that can stand in his way, certainly not free will. I’m certain there’s an element of coercion involved, but ultimately, I do love him now. Despite what he’s done to me, and how much he’s hurt me over the last few months, I still love him.

You don’t just fall out of love with someone instantly. That’s never how it works. And my apartment is still littered with things that are his; his clothes are everywhere, a few of his guitars are stored in the spare bedroom, his toothbrush is still in my bathroom, as are a few bottles of his cologne and there are photos of us everywhere. There are so many photos of us, the two of us, with our families, our friends, the band, they’re everywhere. I’m torn between taking them down and leaving them up. I don’t know what to do. 

I need to speak to him. That’s what I need to do.

:::::::

“Richard?”

“ _Till! Are you okay?_

“Yeah, yeah… Listen, where are you right now?”

“ _At home!_ ”

“Yes, but which home?”

“ _Oh… Berlin._ ”

“Okay, stay where you are. I’ll be there in ten.”

“ _Is everything okay?_ ”

“We need to talk.”

:::::::

This is a place I haven’t been to in a very long time. The reason my apartment is littered with Richard’s things is because we never stay at his place. We’re always at mine. And he lives on the top floor of this building that has no elevator. He clearly hates himself, otherwise why would he live on the fifth floor of a building that didn’t have an elevator? Self-loathing, that’s why. I’m convinced.

His door is different to the rest on his floor. It’s a solid, heavy, dark wooden door, whereas the rest are all light grey. I don’t know why we never spend much time here. His apartment is much nicer than mine. It’s got a much nicer view over the city. Mine’s only small, for quick trips to the city if I need to stay overnight. It’s not for living in permanently. Richard’s is meant to be lived in. It’s wide and open and has an entire wall of glass overlooking the city in his living room, with the most spectacular views late at night. It has a fucking garden, for goodness sake. He’s literally got a rooftop garden, and we never stay here. He makes zero sense to me.

I knock at his door, and it’s pulled open. He’s standing in front of me and he looks so much better than when he left us at the tour bus. He’d just pushed past us and walked home. He’d not told us goodbye, or said anything to the five of us. He just left. But here, he looks so much healthier, so much younger. He looks at peace with himself.

“Please! Come in!” He tells me, moving aside so I can walk through. His apartment is a lot cleaner than before, and he’s fixed the hole in the wall I punched the last time I was here.

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened the last time I was here…” I tell him, turning to look at him, reminding myself to apologise. I was horrible the last time I was here and I need to patch that up. “I should never have lost my temper like that…”

“No, it’s fine. Really, I kind of deserved it and I’m surprised you only hit me once…” He laughs, handing me a beer from the fridge. 

“I read your letter…” I tell him, and he freezes on the spot, slowly turning to look at me.

“Okay…”

“I think I understand now…” I tell him. “But it doesn’t make what you did hurt any less than before…”

“I know.”

“And I understand where you were coming from…”

“Till,”

“But there was a lot I didn’t understand, about you, and the things you did and how you felt… Because we never talk about anything like that. We never sat down and just talked.” He stares at me in silence, and everything seems to slow down. “We were always too busy fighting about stupid stuff or fucking each other…” I laugh, moving to take a seat, “Not that the second half was a problem, but it probably would have been helpful for us to sit and talk sometimes rather than shout and scream and throw shit at each other!”

He laughs, moving to take a seat opposite me, “I don’t think drugs, lack of sleep and too much alcohol helped us either, really… But you do always fuck better when you’re angry…”

“That’s because you’re a thirsty power-bottom…”

“You’re not wrong…”

“Anyway, I’m not here to talk about that.” I tell him, taking a large swig of my beer, “I’m willing to forgive you…” I tell him, “And possibly start again…”

His face lights up, staring at me. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

We sit in silence for a moment, and I’m really unsure of where to go now. He looks just as sheepish as I feel. 

“Are you sure?” He asks me. “I mean, I’m so grateful, but really? Are you sure?”

“Yes, Richard… I’m sure…” I tell him, taking his hand across the table. “While you’re been a monumental arsehole to me for the past however many years now, I still love you. And reading that letter made a lot of things very clear to me. And I think we need to communicate better with one another…” He nods in agreement and gets up, moving to stand at the window. 

“You know I thought I’d lost you forever and single-handedly broken up our band?” He tells me, and laughs. “I’m a very lucky man…”

“You most definitely are…” I tell him, getting to my feet. He moves a little closer to me, slowly at first. He’s like an animal unsure of what they’re up against. He comes closer still, placing his beer gently down on the table before slowly closing the distance between us. He’s ripped all the label from the bottle while he had his back to me, but I’ve missed these fucking lips against mine. It doesn’t take long before he’s gripping the sides of my shirt, pulling me closer to him, kissing me deeply, desperately. I must admit, I’ve missed this so much. I slowly press him up against the wall closest to us, just wanting to feel his body close to mine. I need him more than I thought I did. I always thought it unhealthy to crave someone like this, but I can’t help myself. He’s right, it is an addiction.

He slowly breaks the kiss between us and looks up at me, his pupils fully dilated, and his cheeks blushing. “S-should we move?” he asks, swallowing hard. 

“W-where to?” I ask, realising how stupid my question is once it’s left my mouth. He laughs softly, pressing another kiss to my lips.

“Sofa? Bedroom?” He says softly. 

I laugh, pressing a kiss to his forehead, moving away from him. “You’re going to have to work harder than that to romance me back into bed, Richard…” I smile, picking up my beer bottle to down the last of it. He grabs my hand and pulls me back to him, knocking the bottle from my hand and presses another kiss to my lips. “You’re going to have to work harder…” I laugh, as he guides me back to the sofa, pushing me back to sit down. I watch him move to straddle my hips, kissing me aggressively. He kisses over my throat, biting softly at the skin there, before he moves further. He slides from the sofa, sitting on his knees in front of me. He looks up at me expectantly, waiting for my approval. I can’t help but smile as I look down at him, gently brushing my fingers through his hair. It’s soft, no product in it yet. He leans up to kiss me, moving to unzip my jeans. I watch him as his head dips down and he takes me into his mouth. It makes me shudder, but fuck does it feel good. He always was very good at using his mouth. I gently run my fingers through his hair, settling back. 

It really doesn’t take him long. It never has done in the past. And before long he’s brought me to the edge and I spill onto his tongue. I feel relaxed and sated as he sits up, wiping his lips on the back of his hand. I lean forward and capture that mouth with mine, kissing him deeply. “I’ve missed you…” I whisper against his lips and he smiles. 

“I missed you too…” I returns, crawling back up the sofa. He crawls into my arms after I sort myself out and we cuddle together for a while. I just want to be close to him, more than anything. 

“Do you want to move? Shall we go to the bedroom?” I ask him, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.

“No… Let’s just stay here… I don’t want to give it all away at once, do I?” He laughs, pressing a kiss to my throat.

“Okay…”

“I love you, Till… You know that, right?”

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is he gonna be cruel in chapter 8? Or are they gonna fix all the stuff? I DON'T KNOW? I was planning on killing one of them earlier. But I didn't, in the end. BUT MAYBE THEY'LL DIE? I don't know what I'm doing anymore!!


	8. Chapter 8

“I’ll fucking kill him.”

“ _Till, he’s caught in traffic. He can’t get to the restaurant in time so he said he’d meet you at home!_ ”

“Well why the fuck are you calling me and not him?”

“ _Because I’ve had the same phone number now for eight years and you lose your phone every ten minutes! His phone has died so he called the only number he could remember from a payphone, it just happened to be mine, okay?_ ”

“Paul, it just doesn’t make sense! What traffic? He lives twenty minutes away from here! He didn’t tell me he was going out today. What the hell was he thinking?”

“ _Look, all I know is he asked me to call you and ask you to go home and he’ll meet you there. Don’t shoot the messenger, okay?_ ”

“Fine. Fine, whatever. If he calls you again, tell him I’ll see him at home.”

I hang up the phone and put my head in my hands. Why has he done this? Well this is definitely his final chance. He’s made us stay in before and I don’t know why. What is his problem? Doesn’t he want to be seen with me?

I pay for my drink and tell the waiters I need to get home so I need to leave. As I make my way home, I feel a second wave of renewed anger directed at Richard. Where did he go today that meant he was stuck in traffic? He wouldn’t have been with family because I know they’ve gone away to America for a while, and he wouldn’t have gone to see any members of the band because I’d have known. Maybe he’d gone to meet up with some friends? I realise it’s more disappointing than anything that he’d do this and not tell me. And this makes me so suspicious of him. He’s done it before, so why wouldn’t he do it again?

I stop by a shop and buy myself some beers before walking back to my apartment. I can’t shake this feeling that Richard has been doing something shady this afternoon. I just worry that he’d do something stupid because… Well, have you met him? He’s been quite good recently, though, to give him his dues. He’s been with me a lot, and has avoided drugs and alcohol, but it’s always easier to be clean when you’re not touring and things aren’t so readily available. I always forget when we’re touring how affectionate Richard can be. I know he probably says the same thing about me, but when we’re at home alone, it’s like he’s a completely different person but in the best way possible. I do love Richard, but I am always terrified that he’d cheat on me again. He really is a fascinating creature but he worries me a lot.

I make my way up the stairs to my apartment, slowly pushing open the front door. If he’d be home later I’d have time to try and get my head on straight. However, the first thing that hits me is absolute beautiful smell of cherries cooking. That warm, chocolatey scent rushing through the apartment makes my heart stop in my chest. There’s only two people in my life who make the best Kirschtorte I’ve ever eaten, and Flake isn’t in Berlin right now. I know it’s Kirschtorte straight away, because the smell is so familiar to me. And I know who the baker is straight away.

I feel all the anger I’d been carrying home melt away as I made my way to the kitchen, smelling garlic next, and seafood. I can hear the music serenading us from the living room. I stand in the kitchen door and watch him a moment, singing to himself as he cooks and dancing around the kitchen, making a massive mess. But that doesn’t matter. The fact that the cake is almost done, and he’s nearly cooked dinner means that he’s been here for at least two hours. 

He turns and catches sight of me, staring wide eyed. 

“The cake isn’t finished…” He says, watching me, taking steps towards me. “I thought Paul was going to get you to go to his for a while…”

“No, he told me to come home…” I tell him, moving towards him. “You did all this?”

“Yeah… I really wanted to surprise you. It’s just… I didn’t want to share today with anyone else but you…” he tells me. 

“What do you mean?” I ask him,

“Well… we’ve been together for three years today.” He tells me, and I feel my heart drop to the floor. “Well, I mean if we don’t count the few weeks in which we weren’t together… But it’s our three year anniversary today…” He smiles, moving to press a kiss to my cheek.

“Richard… I… I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I knew you’d forget, so I took advantage of it… I wanted to surprise you…”

I didn’t have any words. I’d thought the absolute worst of him at the blink of an eye, and he’d been so thoughtful. I felt terrible. 

“I didn’t even get you anything…”

“I didn’t expect you to…” He stands by the sink, washing his hands. “I’m glad that you didn’t, because this is much easier than gift-giving anyway…” He dries his hands and looks over me. “Take a seat, Till… Do you want me to put those beers in the fridge?” He doesn’t exactly ask, and he takes the bag from my hand, putting the bottles into the fridge. The alarm goes for the cake to be ready and as he pulls the oven door open, the smell that is emitted is so beautiful I don’t think I can describe it. “Go, take the bottle of wine from the fridge with a couple of glasses and sit in the living room. The cake needs to cool down, and then I need to cover it in cream, so we have time…”

“Well… what about dinner?”

“That’ll be ready when you are.” He tells me, putting the cake layers down on a rack to cool. He’s utterly stunned me. It makes me smile, knowing that he’s one of the few people in my life that can make cake decorating look wholly masculine. I nod at his instructions and do as I’m told. I take the wine and some glasses before heading to the living room to wait for him. He joins me shortly after I sit down and takes his glass as I pour him some wine. “To us!” he smiles, 

“To us…” I repeat and we clink glasses. “This is really good wine?” I tell him once I’d sipped at it. “Not too sweet!”

“I know… It was my mother’s favourite.” He laughs, taking my glass and setting it down with his.

“Richard, I thought the absolute worst of you when I got that phone call from Paul… I’m so sorry to have doubted you…” I tell him, taking his hand in mine. “I’m so sorry.”

“I thought you might…” He says quietly, and he looks away from me, “But it’s okay, you know? It’s my own fault that you feel that way. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep trying to make that feeling go away…” He smiles, and I can see there’s a little bit of hurt behind that smile. I know it makes him sad that I don’t fully trust him, but he’s right, and he understands. And he’s also right in thinking that it will get better. 

“I’ll learn to trust you again…” I tell him, pressing a soft kiss to his fingers. 

“Come on, let’s go and get some food… I’m starving!” he tells me, changing the subject, as he gets up, pulling me to my feet. He doesn’t let go of my hand as we walk to the kitchen and he pulls out my chair for me. We sit and eat in amicable silence, because the food is too good to interrupt with chatter. It’s obvious that from years of living alone, he’s become somewhat of a master chef, and this seafood pasta is just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.

“Is it time for cake now?” I ask, and he laughs, putting the plates into the sink. 

“No… It’s still got to be iced and put in the fridge! Can you get the Kirschwasser out of the cupboard, please?” he asks, and I do so, and watch him painting the top of the cake with the cherry liqueur. I love watching him work. He always looks so content when he’s baking. He paints the cake with whipped cream and dusts it off before bringing it to the table, placing it in front of me. “Do you even want a plate or shall I just give you a fork…?” He asks, laughing as he digs through the cutlery drawer. We settle on forks and dig in, and as always it’s perfect. 

“Please tell me what’s in it that makes it this delicious…?” I beg him, shovelling one more forkful into my mouth.

“Well, much like the chocolate cake in _Matilda_ , I put my blood, sweat and tears into this cake…” He says softly, licking the cream from his fingers, “And also my sperm.” He smiles, and I nearly choke on the cake in my mouth, which makes him laugh.

“I should have known.” I laugh, cleaning myself up.

“I just always want a little piece of myself in every bite…” He laughs, getting up to put the rest of the cake in the fridge. “Can we go and get into bed please? I’ve eaten far too much and I can feel the carb coma coming on…” he tells me, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

“Let’s go…” I say, getting to my feet. 

We make our way to bed, stripping clothes from one another before collapsing in a food-filled heap on the mattress. He crawls up into my arms and wraps his own around me. It feels safe and right. 

“Richard?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I love you, right?”

“Yes, I know.” He smiles as he kisses me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S FINISHED (kind of...)  
> I've been fretting for a week on how I want to end this and I think I've done it but I might turn around and say "NO I'M NOT READY TO LET GO!" because I'm actually a bit terrified that something is terribly wrong...   
> Anyway, hopefully the two of them can live blissfully now forever full of cake and pasta and wine.   
> We'll see!   
> Thank you for sticking with it!

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do something a little different... Or not so different to my usual stuff. 
> 
> There may well be more. Of course I don't think this is really what the boys are like. I imagine they're beautiful, gorgeous humans that are lovely. No fisticuffs at dawn.


End file.
